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HOW TO DESCRIBE 
AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


L. A. SHERMAN 








HOW TO DESCRIBE 
AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


EXERCISES IN LITERARY COMPOSITION 
BASED ON PRINCIPLES AND EXAMPLES 
OF THE WRITER’S ART 


BY 


L. A. SHERMAN 
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA 


That is what we call the art of writing—the summary 
and outcome of many arts and gifts. The grand secret 
of it, I believe, is insight—just estimation and under- 
standing by head and especially by heart—Carlyle: 


Letters to Vernhagen von Ense, III. 


NEW YORK 


GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 





COPYRIGHT, 1925, 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 


HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 
Rs 
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 





WILLIAM RAINEY HARPER 


In Memoriam spe pheit ak 








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FOREWORD 


The public is subconsciously beginning to expect, in its books 
and other reading, much of the clearness, directness, and visual 
quality that it enjoys in the intercourse, through letters and face 
to face converse, of outside life. The major number of manu- 
script offerings, perhaps severally faultless in the mechanics 
of English, are returned by publishers with the general com- 
ment, It lacks appeal. This formula is found to signify the 
absence, in varying degrees, of naturalness, concreteness, and 
sense images. 

This handbook is constructed in recognition of the deficien- 
cies in question, and with the aim, in some measure, of fore- 
stalling them. In preparing it, the elementary processes com- 
mon to great writers were sought out and analyzed, and the 
underlying principles arranged inductively, with some of the 
most salient illustrations available from English and other liter- 
atures. 

The story how the inquiry grew out of seminary studies of 
characterization, and local color, and how the results were tried 
out in college and secondary teaching conducted under the eye 
of the writer, and how students through them gained confidence 
and success, even to the point of public distinction in the field 
of the Short Story, was at first detailed for inclusion in a 
preface. On second thought the author withholds it as too 
intimate and personal to be related here. 

The writer desires to acknowledge his obligations, for per- 
mission to use copyright matter, to Rudyard Kipling, and to 
A. P. Watt and Son and Doubleday, Page and Company, his 
publishers ; to The Illustrated London News; to the New York 
Times, for Harold Bride’s account, in part, of the sinking of the 
Titanic; to Harper’s Magazine and to Dallas Lore Sharp for 
a quotation from “The Woods of Maine”; to the Macmillan 
Company for the paragraph from Dostoévsky; to L. C. Page 


and Company for the passage from Tolstéy; and to Heman 
viz 


viii 7 FOREWORD 


White Chaplin and to Little, Brown and Company, his pub- 
lishers, for the use of paragraphs from Five Hundred Dollars 
and Other Stortes. The author is indebted also, for valuable 
suggestions, to Professor W. T. Brewster, and to Professors 
P, H. Frye, F. A. Stuff, and R. D. Scott, his colleagues, for 


untiring aid and counsel. 
L, A. SHERMAN. 


Lincoln, Nebraska, 
August 14, 1925. 


INTRODUCTION — 


TUDENTS of English do not in general find out, of them- 
selves, the secret of describing and narrating pictorially. 
Yet every event or object has within itself elements or involves 
relations that enable and indeed invite visual presentation. 
English Composition, to be on a par with other studies, should 
not only show how to find the elements that will make a scene 
or object pictorial, but also how to do it in every case. Any- 
thing short of this efficiency must leave rhetoric and compo- 
sition out of the class of school subjects that can be really 
taught. 

The primary object of this manual is to supply instruction 
in what is called Visual Writing. It thus aims to make Eng- 
lish Composition take its place along with algebra and chem- 
istry and other inductive problem studies. But is it prac- 
ticable to treat composition as in the same class with arithmetic 
and geometry and physics, and hold the pupil to a positive and 
definite solution in every task? Some of us, it may be, have 
unhesitatingly and despairingly affirmed that it is not possible 
to narrate or describe visually, at will, much less teach the 
accomplishment to another. Yet perhaps we have only as- 
sumed that it is not possible. Other subjects as difficult as 
visual writing have become practicable to everybody through 
analysis of the processes or products of those who know. It 
would seem well to attempt similar analyses of narration and 
description, in the work of the best masters, before we declare 
that the case is closed. It is not difficult to make the test. 
The lessons in this volume offer, it is believed, a convenient 
means. 

But will not pupils care even less for composition, if it is 
to be burdened with new difficulties, than they do now? This 
is not, of course, an unfair assumption. But is it not just as 
reasonable to assume that the poor work which they are now 
doing, and of which we all Serenata is due to lack of interest 


x . INTRODUCTION 


in both end and means? Every subject of study should fur- 
nish its own motivation. English Composition assuredly does 
not. Suppose we supply something that will make each task 
worth while. It is not difficult to show the student how to 
execute studies in character-drawing and description that are 
as interesting and valuable as the sketches he makes, or the 
vases he brings home, from the lathe, to adorn his mantel or 
study table. It is found, moreover, that he feels a new sense 
of literary values, and seeks fresh materials to work upon, 
outside of prescribed tasks. 

It has been proposed to give over half the time devoted to 
high-school English, unless we can provide more fruitful 
courses, to other subjects. The proposal is not only just but 
timely. Fortunately such courses are not difficult to furnish, 
and their fruitfulness has been amply proved. Knowledge of 
life and human nature is not less important than other knowl- 
edge, and the study of literature and literary composition is 
a natural means of acquiring it. That this knowledge has not 
been administered successfully hitherto is not the fault of the 
student or the subject. We have-not reduced the unit of diff- 
culty. We have taught literature from without and not within. 
Moreover, in our anxiety to ensure mechanical accuracy in 
composition, we have left out of consideration the vital aspects 
of literature as an art. We have assumed that these are mat- 
ters that come of themselves. But they do not come of them- 
selves, and to the ordinary student, to whom we must address 
our teaching, they are unknown. 

It is possible to make our present four years’ work in Eng- 
lish more fruitful than any other. Educate the soul, and the 
intellectual part of the mind will develop with it. Educate this 
intellectual part alone, and we fail to educate at all. The soul 
is manifest in taste, in sympathy, in appreciation of personal 
worth, and in recognition of the beautiful and noble every- 
where. But these activities, at the present stage of pedagogical 
theory and efficiency, cannot well be promoted by systematic 
instruction in the school room. Yet we can develop the higher 
faculties of the pupil by showing him how to occupy himself 
with the observation of life and people, how to read and appre- 
ciate character, how to recognize objects and happenings of 


INTRODUCTION xi 


literary value in the world outside, and how to present his 
discoveries in a refined and literary way. The topics in this 
volume are offered as provisional means for the exercise of the 
zesthetic senses to which literature appeals. There seems no 
reason why literary composition should not take on much of 
the significance, in kind, that nature study offers in the material 
sphere. The work will also involve and strengthen sentiments 
that make for character-building in the adolescent mind. More- 
over, here as elsewhere, the greater includes the less. With the 
new motivation, it is observed that pupils set about the con- 
quest of the last redoubts of spelling and punctuation and 
paragraphing, of their own motion, because of pride in their 
work. 

The terms introduced here and there in various chapters, as 
new distinctions develop, are proposed merely as tentative and 
provisional names. An eventual nomenclature can be fixed only 
by evolution. Yet it has seemed better for example to apply 
“visual center” to the compelling element of a scene or hap- 
pening, than to borrow the artist’s term “principality” for the 
same phase of the picture, or to leave this vital part unnamed. 
Similarly, “sense appeals” and “imaginative appeals” define 
elements that call imperatively for distinction. Finally, some 
attention has been paid, in later chapters, to new features which 
literature, always a thing of growth, has brought into form in 
recent years. Pupils who leave hope of further instruction 
behind, on finishing the twelfth grade, are perhaps in greatest 
need of help in distinguishing genuine expedients of art from 
the flashy and spurious products of literary knack. Students 
of journalism also should know the chief secrets of literary 
mastery, as well as of visual and forceful writing, that they 
may not lose sight of the highest standards. The present 
manual is designed to reflect, in an elementary way, the spirit 
of modern literature-making, and is the fruit of experiments 
and studies engaged in, by the writer and assistants, at the 
University of Nebraska since 1890. The substance of the 
work has been covered in courses at Colorado College, Cha- 
tauqua Lake and twice by lectures and instruction at the Uni- 
versity of Chicago. 





CHAPTER 
I 


II 
iil 
IV 
Vv 
vi 
vil 
Vill 


IX 


XI 
XIT 
XIIT 


XIV 
XV 
XVI 
XVII 
XVIII 
XIX 
XX 
XXI 
XXII 
XXIII 
XXIV 
XXV 


CONTENTS 


DESCRIPTIVE. TELLING e407"). 

GRUBER ORCPLEMENTS revo de id 

SENSE APPEALS 

ELEMENTARY NARRATION 

VISUAL PRESENTATION OF PERSONS 

DESCRIPTION 

DESCRIPTION OF NOVEL FORMS 

DESCRIPTION OF LESSER AND MORE FAMILIAR 
OBJECTS Uti hana Re Caan ar : 

DESCRIPTION BY TYPES OF COLOR 

NARRATION 

FORMS OF NARRATION 

FORMS OF NARRATION (CONTINUED) 


LITERARY TECHNIC IN DESCRIPTION AND NAR- 
RATION . . ‘ 


EXPOSITION 
FORMS OF EXPOSITION . { é : 
CHARACTERIZATION ; ; 
CHARACTERIZATION (CONTINUED) ; : 
CHARACTERIZATION IN DEGREE 

INDIRECT CHARACTERIZATION ; : : 
MOODS AND EMOTIONS 

SUBSTANCE AND ORIGINALITY ‘ 
ARGUMENTATION 

NARRATION BY IMAGINATIVE INFERENCE 
DESCRIPTION BY NARRATION . : 


DESCRIPTION WITH MYSTIC TYPE . : . 
xiii 


PAGE 
17 
24 
31 
37 


52 
63 


43 
84 
93 
100 
III 


124 
131 
144 
158 
167 
175 
185 
200 
208 
218 
233 
244 
251 


xiv CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 
XXVI NARRATION BY EXPOSITION . ... » -200 
XXVII ASSOCIATIONS AND ENVIRONMENT . ‘ 1 293 

XXVIII THE CONCRETE MANNER ‘ ; ; ii 282 
XXIX SOLECISMS AND INFELICITIES . : : . 205 

XXX SYSTEMATIC CRITICISM . } [ : RO 
XXXI ILLUSTRATIONS 

I Characteristics . ; : A Be Ge Hah 

LI0On )Laxrury ! Sma ; nate 

III Constantinople . . tees be 

IV The Magic of the eared ; MO eo 


NOTES esi gts gr a eget Ra ae Age: Ete 


HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 





HOW TO DESCRIBE 
AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


CHAPTER I 
DESCRIPTIVE TELLING 


E have the habit of dignifying almost any manner of 

stating the looks of things by calling it Description. 
Yet we are probably aware that there are many scenes and ob- 
jects which, even if awkwardly or imperfectly presented, pic- 
ture themselves definitely in our thought. No exercise of will 
is needed to image examples of this class. We cannot help 
visualizing the whole of what is told. One hears constantly, 
at home and at school and everywhere, reports like this of 
what some one has noted: . 


The house, I can tell you, was a sight. The Christmas 
tree in the parlor had been tipped over, there were strings 
of popcorn on the rugs, cookies had been crumbled over 
the sofa, and there was a pair of skates on the dining- 
room table. The children’s mother had gone out for the 

- afternoon. 


The speaker here simply mentions certain objects discon- 
nectedly, paying no attention to the process or the method. 
There is evidently all the effect, without the effort, of strong 
description. 

But there are other scenes and objects that do not at all 
visualize themselves on mention, but require of a writer both 
effort and knowledge. In dealing with examples of this kind, 
we are at once persuaded that Description is truly and prop- 
erly an art. If we should attempt to present the bridge here 
shown, so that the ordinary reader might construct a picture 


of it in his mind, we should meet with difficulties, and be 
17 


18 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


forced to use art in overcoming them. Art, speaking gener- 
ally, is the power of finding and adapting means to attain some 
desired or necessary end. We are probably not clear, at this 
moment, how we should begin a task so complex and various. 
After we have tried our hand at easier exercises, we shall come 
back to this scene, and learn whether we can command the 
means, the skill, to present it visually and correctly. 





EDWIN NATURAL BRIDGE, 
SOUTHERN UTAH 


We may well begin our study of visual writing by examining 
the nature of scenes and objects which, like the example from 
life just cited, may be said to visualize themselves. This sen- 
tence, from Conrad’s Nostromo (p. 276), is an illustration of 
the same kind from books: 


The low door of*the café, wide open, was filled with 
the glare of a torch in which was visible half of a horse, 
switching its tail against the leg of a rider with a long 
iron spur strapped to the naked heel. 


The picture that rises in our minds is definite and striking, 
and not from any especial use of art, as is evident, in draft- 


DESCRIPTIVE TELLING 19 


ing it. The passage is ill-constructed, and has indeed been 
criticized, as to the use of “which,” as ambiguous and un- 
grammatical. But the writer could hardly have failed, except 
by miscalling the objects in it, of making the product visual. 
So we feel warranted in accounting it an example, not of 
description proper, but rather of pictorially associated and 
enumerated elements, or of “descriptive telling.” 

More precisely, our minds are stimulated to realize the scene 
pictorially, not by the long spur and the naked heel individ- 
ually as such, but by the union of these incongruous ideas. A 
spur is usually attached to the heel of a riding-boot instead of 
a bared foot. The glare of a torch does not ordinarily, in 
our experience, fill the door of a café, or light up only the 
hinder half of a horse, or issue—as we are later told—from 
burning tow and resin in an iron “basket,” carried on a stick 
at the saddle bow of a horseman. Conrad, it would seem, sub- 
consciously expected that this spectacle would appeal to the 
fancy of his reader through the odd grouping of its elements 
or parts. 

The mental principle that ensures effectiveness in such cases 
is now brought to view. Our minds are quickened to visual- 
izing action when things not usually in connection are reported 
as seen together. Ordinary objects associated in ordinary 
ways are apt to lose, from familiarity, this power with fancy. 
Strange combinations of any sort are sure to attract attention, 
are often told of and remembered, and sometimes appear in 
the funny column of the newspapers. But it is not merely 
our sense of humor that prompts us to communicate common- 
place observations such as these: 


Once on Wall Street wharf I saw a young Mexican get 
out of a Holland omnibus bearing in his hand a parrot 
cage stuffed with shoes—Flandrau: Viva Me-ico, p. 10. 


So I left my fairy godmother, with both her hands on 
her crutch-stick, standing in the midst of the dimly lhghted 
room beside the rotten bride-cake that was hidden with 
cobwebs.—Dickens: Great Expectations, Chapter XIX. 


Another champion had included among his warlike ac- 
coutrements a curious-looking silver clock, which dan- 
gled by his side from a multitude of chains. This worthy, 


20 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


I imagine, intended to kill time—Curzon: Monasteries 
of the Levant, pp. 176, 177. 


Incongruities of this sort, as observed in life, are often re- 
ported deliberately for visual effect in literature. Here are 
good examples: 


By the porch steps stood a wheelbarrow, packed with 
white china, a drop-light, and a brass cage of canaries. 


In the tray of the miner’s trunk were a pair of black 
gauntlets, a coil of fuse, a microscope, a geologist’s ham- 
mer, and a pocket dictionary. 


At the middle of the room, the house-maid was stand- 
ing on a glass-legged piano stool and timorously turning 
the key of the fixture, with rubber gloves, to light the gas. 
She had suffered a severe shock, from a tramp current, a 
night or two before. 


Pictorial effect may be produced upon imagination similarly 
by mention of objects as out of position, or in some strange 
environment: 


On the blue-lacquered running board of an automobile, 
standing in front of an apartment house, was a brown 
rooster, backed up against the body of the vehicle, as if 
on guard over it. 


Sometimes Mr. Northcote gets to the top of a ladder to 
paint a palm-tree, or to finish a sky in one of his pic- 
tures; and in this situation he listens attentively to any- 
thing you tell him. 


In the rain, on a college campus near the gymnasium, 
stood an old discarded square piano, open, with the music- 
support in position, while the big drops dashed and splat- 
tered along the yellowed keys. 


At the center of the most conspicuous panel was a 
square of white satin, enclosed in a broad gilt frame. 
Surprised, I went up to the object to see it better, and 
observed a hairpin fastened at the middle of the rich 
material. 


Among the odd remedies recurred to to aid my lameness, 
in my infancy, some one had recommended that so often 
as a sheep was killed for the use of the family, I should 


DESCRIPTIVE TELLING 21 


be stripped, and swathed up in the skin, warm as it was 
flayed from the carcass of the animal. 


About four yards or five from the spot where the horse 
lodged himself was a well, and a pretty deep one too, 
by my word; but not a soul could tell what had become 
of the tailor, until Owen Smith chanced to look into the 
well, and saw his spurs just above the level of the water. 
So he was pulled up in a pretty pickle, not worth the 
washing. But what did he care? 


The examples now considered should prove sufficient to 
prepare for a first exercise in what may be called literary ob- 
servation. The fundamental skill of authors, as of artists, is 
attained through simple studies of common things. After 
eminence is achieved, the painter still scans outside nature for 
ideas and forms. Nothing of artistic promise or worth es- 
capes him. The master novelist is always on the watch for 
new aspects of men and things with which he may help satisfy 
the universal craving to know life wholly. Some authors pro- 
fess to use only such materials as they have seen and studied 
in the actual. 

For our part, we shall disregard for the present all objects 
that will not, on mention, picture themselves strongly. It is 
not necessary that the things sought for should be complex, 
or offer several or various visualizing details. Pictorial effect: 
is not dependent so much on the number as on the quality of 
compelling elements. Visualizing incongruity may subsist be- 
tween an object and the purpose it serves, as in Dickens’s use 
of a file, instead of a spoon, to stir a liquid. Or imaginative 
stimulation may be generated between substance and product, 
as in a suit made of old red carpet. But instances of visuali- 
zation through a number of details are often of high literary 
interest, and invite careful study. 

For our present purpose, the appropriate field of observa- 
tion is the crowded street. Here we can study people, and 
things of concern to people, at the same moment. Here the 
simpler secrets of visual writing, which cheap fiction-makers 
deal with by sheer knack, lie open to us. Likely enough, at 
first only sensational sights and objects will attract us. Of 
the reports below, it is conceivable that only the last might be 


22 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


voted worthy, at the moment, of being offered as an example. 
But after a few excursions, the difference between freakish 
spectacles, and the normal aspects of real life, grows clear. 


Here is a wagon loaded with new bright-yellow step- 
ladders, piled to the very top. 


Now appears, in dark blue divided skirt, a lady riding 
horseback, under a large white parasol. 


Here is a round-shouldered man, sitting and driving, 
on the extreme front of an open market wagon, and using 
a lath for a whip. 


Rattling and bounding up from the stones of the pave- 
ment, a farmer’s wagon approaches, and standing up in 
it is a red calf, with a new rope about its neck. 


Here is a one-legged man on a galloping horse. He 
holds the reins in one hand, and keeps his crutch in place 
with the other, while the crutch, with each movement 
of the horse, stabs downward at the ground. 


Now we come upon a delivery conveyance in the form 
of a big red shoe, mounted on four wheels, with toe 
towards the horse, and driver seated above the heel, and 
with buttons on the left side as large as teacups. 


When material seems slow in presenting itself, and indeed 
generally, it will be well for members of the class to work co- 
operatively. Searching the field together, we challenge and 
stimulate each other’s powers of observation. Watching what 
approaches, or what we approach, we each ask some comrade, 
“Ts here anything which, told to another, would prove visual ?” 
The habit of quick perception can be sooner formed in part- 
nerships than by attempted exercise of it in singles. Nature 
study, it is to be remembered, is not more important or fasci- 
nating than the study of human nature. One of the immediate 
effects of our work will be a better appreciation, in our read- 
ing, of local color. 


EXERCISES 


1. Report orally, in a class exercise, the results of your search 
for scenes or objects that have visual potency because composed 
of incongruous elements or parts. 


DESCRIPTIVE TELLING 23 


2. Select two from these examples, and present later the details 
of each in a written paragraph of descriptive telling. 

3. In a special class exercise, tell informally of the most non- 
descript object or situation that you can recall. 

4. Try whether, in a written paragraph, you can make what 
you have just reported more effective and pictorial. 

5. Report two examples of strong visualization, in current 
magazines or novels, through grouping of incongruous elements 
or parts. 

6. Read Chapter XI of Dickens’s Great Expectations, and quote 
the examples of descriptive telling. 

7. Report two instances, from books or magazines, of visual 
effect produced by presentation of objects displaced, or in unusual 
environments. 

8. From Stevenson’s Treasure Island, or Conrad’s Youth, or 
some more recent volume, copy half-a-dozen passages made visual 
by incompatibility of parts or notions, and show which seems most 
pleasing or effective. 

9. Looking through the “tabloid” paragraphs in some news- 
paper, copy two conspicuous examples, and note whether you can 
explain why they have been selected to be circulated through the 
country. 


CHAPTER II 
ORDER OF ELEMENTS 


ARE should be taken, in mentioning the parts of a scene 

or situation expected to prove pictorial, to keep the imag- 

ination of the reader from undoing what it is beginning to put 

together. This can be done by specifying right elements in 
proper order. 

In oral and unconsidered speech, this principle is frequently 
disregarded. Some one, for instance, will say, “I saw a horse 
trudging along a path much trodden. It was a white horse, 
and the path ran deep in woods. The horse was fitted out 
with a pack-saddle, and was carrying boxes of dynamite to 
some mining camp. At a little distance after, on the trail, was 
another horse similarly equipped, close after came another, 
then at a longer interval was a fourth. Behind the last, a man 
followed on foot. The woods we were going through were 
of fir.” 

We find, on trying to realize these details, that we alter the 
course of construction at least five times. At mention of 
“horse,” we see in our mind’s eye an unharnessed bay horse, 
bay being the usual color, and we see “a path much trodden” 
in level, open country. Next, having changed our notion of 
bay to ‘“‘white,” we revise the image of the horse, and fit him 
out with a pack-saddle supporting long white-pine boxes bal- 
anced upright on either side. Then we bring in another horse, 
doubting whether this also should be white, and replace the 
forest path with a mountain trail, and add another horse, and 
then another, and finally a man bringing up the rear on foot. 
Last of all, we exchange the woods we have pictured for a 
forest of fir. We thus finally complete the scene, but find it, 
because of our meddling with the organic processes of imagina- 
tion, singularly ineffective and unsatisfying. 

In order to present a scene naturally and vividly, we must 
think before we begin. We should always work, consciously 

24 


ORDER OF ELEMENTS 25 


or subconsciously, from a plan. To do this, we need simply 
to ask ourselves, What part of the picture is it best to mention 
first? Shall it be the place, or what is to be presented in the 
place? How are other elements to be grouped? 

Of course, there will be different. answers, in different prob- 
lems, to these questions. Here, surely, we must make our 
hearer or reader see first the place. So we will say, “Along 
a mountain trail, in fir woods.” To keep the reader’s fancy 
from constructing the main idea wrongly, we will give notice 
beforehand of what it is like, and say, “a pack-train of four 
horses.” We thus prevent imagination, on mention of 
“horses,” from presenting them harnessed as horses at work 
usually are. It is of course not necessary to state that the 
horses in a pack-train are separated a little each from each. 
But the man who conducts the train may well enough be men- 
tioned, to close the picture, by himself. The scene, as a whole, 
will then be constructed in some such detail as this: 


Along a mountain trail, in fir woods, trudged a pack- 
train led by a white horse and followed by three others of 
a bay color, each carrying a tall pine box of dynamite 
balanced and fastened upright on either side of the saddle. 
A few paces behind the last of the horses, a man followed 
on foot. 


As there is movement in the picture, it seems at first an ex- 
ample of narration rather than of “description,” or of descrip- 
tive telling. But the figures in the scene do not alter their 
positions in any way. If we had taken our snap-shot earlier 
or considerably later than at the time chosen, we should have 
had practically the same picture as the one here shown. The 
object in narration is to exhibit the progress or product of 
some action. In description, one moment of time is as another. 
In narration, no two moments yield the same view. 

To introduce a panoramic scene, though provided like the 
foregoing with visualizing features, is not so easy as to pre- 
sent a more rounded picture. Elements that lend themselves 
naturally to grouping are held in thought more firmly: 


From a high telephone post, from which hangs a cable 
half-fastened, a lineman has fallen, by the breaking of his 


26 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


belt, fifty feet upon the curbstone below. A crowd has 
gathered, and the coroner is making inquiries of other 
linemen who were near when the mishap occurred. A 
lady from the house opposite has just brought out a sheet, 
which now covers the lifeless body of the man. 


This ill-ordered paragraph contains strongly visual matter, 
and, in spite of the narrative details added to explain, treats 
a descriptive subject. We are sure of this because the pur- 
pose clearly is to show a single situation in a single view, and 
because there is no movement or change of relation in the 
materials to be used. The main idea calls for nothing more 
than descriptive telling. But this should be the first and not 
the last thing presented in the paragraph. After the scene is 
established, necessary explanation can be added. So we may 
recast after this fashion: 


Beside a tall telephone post near the curb, a white sheet 
spread out over the pavement covers an object, showing 
the outlines of a human form, from the view of an en- 
circling crowd. A lineman, by the breaking of his belt, 
has fallen fifty feet from the sagging cable, at the top of 
the post, to this spot where the form is lying. The lady 
standing a little aloof has just brought, from the house 
opposite, the white covering on which at its raised part 
all looks are centered. 


The incongruity involved in the idea of a linen sheet spread 
out upon a pavement is sufficient in itself to force the visuali- 
zation. It is not necessary to refer to other linemen, or to 
introduce the coroner interrogating witnesses while they wait 
for an ambulance to bear away the body. Only vital features 
can add intensity. Imagination may be trusted to supply, in 
needed measure, the scenes to follow. 

We see thus that details, where possible, should be grouped 
about some visual center. The linen sheet, serving as the 
focus of interest here, arouses the imaging powers of the mind, 
and keeps them alert while the remaining elements and the 
explanation are supplied. Writers sometimes fail, with right 
materials in reach, of timely and effective appeals to imagina- 
tion. The following, from Sue’s Wandering Jew (lI. iii), will 
illustrate : 


ORDER OF ELEMENTS 27 


The steps of the ladder trembled, and an enormous head 
appeared on a level with the floor. The newcomer, who 
was more than six feet high, and gifted with Herculean 
proportions, had been well named Goliath. He was 
hideous. His squinting eyes were deep-set beneath a low 
and projecting forehead. His reddish hair and beard, 
thick and coarse like horsehair, gave to his features a 
character of bestial ferocity. Between his large jaws, 
armed with teeth which resembled fangs, he held by one 
corner a piece of raw beef weighing ten or twelve pounds, 
finding it no doubt easier to carry in that manner, whilst 
he used his hands to ascend the ladder, which tottered 
beneath his weight. 


The author’s first sentence is effective, and prepares for the 
tremendously visual stroke of showing the beef held and car- 
ried, at one corner, by the “fangs.” This is surely the next 
thing, after the head of the monster, that an observer in an 
ill-lighted room would make out, and is therefore the next 
thing to be told. But Sue withholds this, and goes on illog- 
ically to sketch the appearance of Goliath before he has had 
time to reach the top of the ladder. Suppose, instead, the 
author had handled his material after this manner: 


The steps of the ladder trembled, and an enormous 
head appeared on a level with the floor. Between the 
large jaws, armed with teeth that resembled fangs, this 
creature held by one corner a piece of raw beef weigh- 
ing ten or twelve pounds, finding it no doubt easier to 
carry in that manner, whilst he used his hands to ascend 
the ladder which tottered beneath his weight. 


This, except the last two lines, is clearly descriptive telling, 
and involves no especial skill on the part of the writer. It 
is not the “form” but the preposterous matter that makes the 
passage vivid. Moreover, the picture will hold itself together, 
about this visual center, while the appearance of the monster, 
now emerged from the ladder, is detailed: 


The newcomer, who was more than six feet high, and 
endowed with Herculean proportions, had been well named 
Goliath. He was hideous. His squinting eyes were deep- 
set beneath a low and projecting forehead. His reddish 


28 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


hair and beard, thick and coarse like horsehair, gave to 
his features a character of bestial ferocity.+ 


The tendency in present-day literature, as has been noted, is 
strongly towards a larger use of visual quality. Many authors 
strive not only to multiply instances, but also to increase the 
vividness of pictorial effect. So we find that novelists and 
short-story writers, in dealing with hard problems of descrip- 
tion, often devise and insert incongruous elements in order to 
render an object or situation more striking. Indeed, some 
authors of this class would not scruple to intensify the scene, 
veritably reported in the second example of this chapter, by 
invented features. Conceivably, a hook-and-ladder wagon, 
and an engine still smoking, might stand opposite in the street, 
stopped in return from a recent fire. Less plausibly, the 
crowd might have been increased by a bevy of awe-struck girls 
in graduation caps and gowns. But such additions would 
visualize away from, and not towards, the focus of the scene. 
‘On the other hand, a flash of lightning and drops of rain from 
a breaking storm, if within the facts, might be lastly men- 
tioned as the grim setting for such a tragedy. 

Great artists, as we shall discover, are never sensational 
beyond the warrant of reality. They compass sufficient ef- 
fectiveness by leaving nature as they find it. On reflection, 
we are inclined to suspect that Sue’s presentation of Goliath 
as carrying the meat with his teeth is an exaggerated incon- 
gruity of the sort in question. The author might have spared 
him one of his hands, from the ladder, to hold the beef, and 
so save the strain upon his “fangs.’’ But Sue does not con- 
cern himself with the probabilities here. He is intent merely 
to force upon us a spectacle that will persist in thought not 
only to the end of the description but till the whole episode is 
carried through. 


EXERCISES 


I. Examine the construction of the following sentence and 
show how presentation could be improved: 
1 Goliath, as the author goes on to explain, is the servant of Morok, a brute- 


tamer, and is here bringing beef from the butcher’s to a tiger and a lion, two of 
the animals which Morok professionally ‘‘tames” before the public. 


ORDER OF ELEMENTS 29 


Among other strange things he told of was a boy speed- 
ing along on roller skates, splashing in the rain in the 
middle of the street, under an umbrella. 


2. Study the materials in this picture, which shows how the 
former site of a Greek temple looks to-day. The “pillar” is one 
of its ancient columns: 


The men were standing in the little market-place, under 
the shade of an old eucalyptus tree with a deep trough 
around it. Close by them two horses and some kids were 
tied to the weather-beaten pillar, which is over the foun- 
tain. 


What is the visual or persistent center of the scene? Has the 
writer improved to the full her opportunity? If not, show why, 
and recast. 


3. Arrange the following for best visual effect, altering if nec- 
essary the language: 


Miss McRory was still in the saddle, but minus reins 
and stirrup; the wind had again removed her hat, which 
was following her at full stretch of its string. 


4. Recast the following, from Lord Curzon’s Monasteries of 
the Levant, for better unity and visual effect: 


My boat was an original-looking vessel to an English 
eye, with a high bow and stem covered with bright brass: 
over the rudder there hung a long piece of network orna- 
mented with blue glass beads: flowers and arabesques 
were carved on the boards at each end of the vessel, 
which had one low mast with a single sail. 


5. Find whether Mr. Snodgrass’s description can be improved 
in arrangement or pictorial skill: 


Mr. Snodgrass took a survey of the room. He describes 
it, as a large apartment, with a red brick floor, and a capa- 
cious chimney; the ceiling garnished with hams, sides of 
bacon, and ropes of onions. The walls were decorated 
with several hunting-whips, two or three bridles, a saddle 
and an old rusty blunderbuss. An old eight-day clock, 


30 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


of solemn and sedate demeanor, ticked gravely in one 
corner: and a silver watch dangled from one of the hooks 
which ornamented the dresser. / 


6. Study whether parts of costume that are first noticed in the 
actual should be mentioned first, and improve the order of presen- 
tation, if change seems needed, in each of the following para- 
graphs: 


A man on horseback, disguised as a postilion, with a 
blue jacket embroidered with silver, and an enormous 
pigtail from which the powder escaped in puffs, and a 
hat adorned with long ribbons, preceded the first carriage, 
cracking his whip and crying with all his might, “Make 
way for the Queen Bacchanal and her court!” 

The costume of the Queen Bacchanal was composed of 
a tight, long-waisted bodice in cloth of gold, trimmed with 
great bunches of scarlet ribbon, the ends of which 
streamed over her naked arms, and a short petticoat of 
scarlet velvet, ornamented with golden beads and span- 
gles. A sort of gilt diadem, hung with little bells, adorned 
her forehead. Her long hair, in two thick braids, was 
drawn back from her rosy cheeks, and twisted behind her 
head. 


7. Find and report upon a good example, from some book or 
magazine, of descriptive telling that is helped in effectiveness by 
a natural arrangement of parts. 

8. Find a like combination of visual materials that fails of just 
effectiveness, through wrong order of mention, and recast. 


CHAPTER IT] 
SENSE APPEALS 


HERE are other ways, besides combining discordant or 

incongruous elements, of arousing the imaging powers of 
the mind. Our imaginations are stimulated to realize objects 
or surroundings visually when one of our bodily senses is 
pleasurably or displeasingly addressed. 

A hungry man sees visions, when he smells coffee or broil- 
ing meats, of a waiting meal. The hot and thirsty traveler, on 
a railway train in midsummer, chancing on lines quoted from 
The Old Oaken Bucket in a magazine, feels his fancy kindle 
and sees in his mind’s eye some country scene with a well and 
its dripping bucket. A florist’s advertisement, near the end 
of Lent, makes us imagine the interior of a shop lined with 
Easter lilies. The notes of an oboe or a French horn, heard 
as we pass a concert hall, force upon our minds the picture 
of an orchestra and of an audience that we should be glad to 
join. 

We use this principle by instinct constantly. We tell our 
experiences, and expect our hearers to see and realize them 
with essentially the same vividness as we picture them with in 
memory. We can each recall many personal examples of 
proved efficiency: 


Our cook often flavored our apple pies with geranium 
leaves and stems, 


I believe the little scamp used a nail instead of his 
slate-pencil now and then on the sly. You should have 
seen the girls and the teacher scringe. 


Fumbling about in the dark for matches, I got my hand 
on some sticky fly-paper, which was fairly dripping, the 
night was so warm. It took me a full half-hour to get my 
fingers clear of the rosin. 


There was an abandoned garret room in the old farm 
house which was used ‘as a place to ripen quinces. Bush- 
31 


32 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


els of them were left on the floor for weeks, with all 
windows closed. You could almost taste the odor. 


As we rode out of the woods, in the starlight, the tones 
of a flute surprised us. We found that they came from 
a cottage, all dark within, which stood at the edge of the 
forest, and on the steps of which the player must have 
been sitting. 


The preceding chapters have shown us how forces in the 
mind make meanings under certain conditions visual to us. 
We have observed that they do this without summons or com- 
pulsion from ourselves. We do not call upon our imaging 
powers to conceive a parrot cage stuffed with old shoes, but 
on the contrary find ourselves helpless, without strong effort 
of will, to prevent the picture. In the illustrations of both 
chapters, our minds were aroused by some incongruity or nov- 
elty in the ideas presented. In the examples just considered, 
the force is derived from some sort of partiality or aversion 
towards the objects and thoughts involved. 

We may call the ideas by which forces of this sort are chal- 
lenged, Sense Appeals. Any name or object which prompts 
our minds to revive a sensation, is a Sense Appeal. In the 
various forms of sense appeals, masters of literary art find 
themselves provided with a valuable expedient. By the use 
of words alone, they can make us see visions of spread tables 
when we are not hungry, and hear tones with the ear of the 
mind when we are in no mood for music. Appeals to each 
of the “five senses” abound in books of fiction and travel: 


At midnight he sank once more into deep prostration, 
and we heard only the light sound of his nails picking at 
the sheets. He knew us no longer.—Anatole France: 
La Reine Pédauque. 


A. scent of dying wood-fires lingers in the air; the pines 
emit a balmy, resinous odor; our feet crush some unseen 
herb and a fresh fragrance uprises in response.—Sale: 
A Paradise in Portugal. 


All at once, at a turn of the road, they saw Tournoél. 
The ancient castle stood on the summit of a mountain, 
and was crowned by its tall, slender tower that was 


SENSE APPEALS 33 


pierced so that shafts of moonlight streamed through its 
walls.— Maupassant. 


“Have you drunk the waters, Mr. Weller?” inquired 
his companion, as they walked towards High Street. 

“Once,” replied Sam. 

“What did you think of ’em, sir?” 
4 “T thought they was particlery unpleasant,” replied 

am. 

“Ah,” said Mr. John Smauker, “you disliked the killi- 
beate taste, perhaps?” 

“T don’t know much about that ’ere,” said Sam. “I 
thought they’d a wery strong flavor o’ warm flatirons.” 
—Dickens: Picwick Papers. 


A sound of bells, and of sniffing and scuffling, roused 
him; a large gray goat had come up and was smelling at 
his hair—the leader of a flock, that were soon all round 
him, solemnly curious, with their queer yellow oblong- 
pupilled eyes, and their quaint little beards and tails. He 
lay still . . . while the leader sampled the flavor of his 
neck.—Galsworthy: The Dark Flower. 


The pictorial quality in these passages is forceful, yet there 
is no apparent effort or purpose on the part of the writers 
severally to produce description. They furnish no materials, 
and give no directions how to conceive the scene. Our minds 
are stimulated, and, without instructions, produce pictures that 
square with each event and moment. In many instances, sense 
appeals of different kinds are brought together, with enhanced 
effect, as in this example of mingled sight and sound and 
odor: 


They remained alone, the dead woman and her chil- 
dren. The ticking of the clock, hidden in the shadow, 
could be clearly heard, and through the open window 
drifted in the sweet smell of hay and of woods, together 
with the mellow moonlight. No other sounds from over 
the fields could be distinguished save now and then the 
croaking of frogs or the chirping of some belated insect. 
—Maupassant. 


It is thus clear that excellent examples of what is called de- 
scription may be effected, without skill except in arrangement, 
through simple appeals to our fancy or memory of sensations. 


34 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


Uses larger than incidental are often made of these expedients. 
The following paragraph, from Sudermann’s Es War (XIII), 
is seen to be made up almost wholly of combined and adjusted 
sense appeals: 


It was a sultry, steamy evening near the beginning of 
September. The river lay gleaming softly like a mirror 
of molten silver. Blue-black clouds were massed on the 
horizon, and occasionally lighted up their sides with faint 
flashes, unanswered by any echo of the thunder. On the 
wooded rise of ground above the river stood a glossy, 
fat, red pony, half harnessed to his governess cart, and 
flapping with tail and mane at the midges, which seemed 
that day more insolent in their onslaughts than usual. At 
intervals he set up a helpless neighing towards that spot 
at the edge of the water where the awning of a swimming 
pool showed white above the downy heads of the bul- 
rushes. From inside arose long-drawn shrieks, half tim- 
orous, half gleeful, such as girls indulge in when disport- 
ing themselves in the water. 


The effect of the passage as a whole is not so vivid as of 
some of the preceding examples, but is greater than the sum, 
speaking materially, of imaginative effects from the several 
parts. It is not necessary that all the features in such a view 
should have been met with in the actual. Memory and imag- 
ination work together. The mind images courtly and humble 
scenes with equal readiness. Mention of a kitten playing with 
a knitter’s ball of yarn, or of a girl, in flaxen braids, popping 
corn over a grate fire of glowing coals, appeals to fancy 
through our fondness for the idyllic and picturesque. Our 
interest in people finds satisfaction even when we are told of 
a negress coming in from her garden patch with new-dug po- 
tatoes in her apron, and holding and swinging a new hoe in 
her right hand. The picture is intensified by the incongruity 
of parts, and because of a certain commiseration which we feel 
for such a lot. Yet we would fain see life and “‘see it whole.” 

The realizing forces in our minds are roused apparently to 
their greatest activity by mention of experiences that are un- 
canny or repulsive. Circumstances of terror or peril, when 
reported to us, inspire images that are vivid in proportion to 
the degree of sympathy which the case awakens: 


SENSE APPEALS 35 


One night, while asleep, I felt something icy touch my 
face. I leaped upright, but the sand, the tent, everything 
was hid in darkness. I lighted my lantern, ready to crush 
the supposed scorpion or viper with my heel, when I saw 
a monstrous white toad. There it was, squatting, puffed 
up, its feet wide apart, looking at me. The horrible crea- 
ture had probably found me in its path, and bumped 
against my cheek.—Maupassant. 


It is characteristic of a sense appeal that it provokes the 
mind to visualize, besides the particular thing signified, more 
or less of the whole of which it is a part. In the present case, 
the sense appeals of the icy touch, of the lighted lantern, and 
of the tent over its floor of sand, apart from the loathsome 
whiteness of the creature—which is the persistent and com- 
pelling center—make us see not only the space enclosed by 
the tent, but its site in the desert, and the twinkling of the 
stars above. Tennyson’s line from The Princess (IV. 26),— 


Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,— 


brings into mental view not alone the sail, with the light “glit- 
tering’ upon it, but also the ship, and the blue surrounding 
sea. 


EXERCISES 


1. Bring in, from fresh observation in home surroundings, two 
good examples of sense appeals. 

2. Report some scene or situation in school life which sense 
appeals make visual. 

3. Recall some large landscape or sea view offering picturesque 
features or sense appeals, and present, after the manner of the 
paragraph from Sudermann, in visual detail. 

4. Show how to present pictorially the appearance of a black- 
smith shop or foundry in which men work at night. 

5. By sense appeals of odor make the interior of a drug-store 
or a grocery visual to the reader. 

6. Construct an example in which sense appeals and incongru- 
ous elements combine with visual effectiveness. 

7. Report two good examples of sense appeals from short sto- 
ries or other matter in current magazines. 


86 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


8. Show how to make a night scene pictorial through sense ap- 
peals of sound. 

g. Make a dining-room pictorial through use of some sense ap- 
peal of taste. 

10. Discuss the effectiveness of this scene, from Hawthorne’s 
An Old Woman's Tale: 


In the house where I was born, there used to be an 
old woman crouching all day long over the kitchen fire, 
with her elbows on her knees and her feet in the ashes. 


11. Try whether you can match from memory, for intensity, 
this example from John Muir’s Boyhood and Youth (p. 3): 


The needle-voiced field mouse. . . . When we sat down 
to rest on one of the haycocks I heard a sharp, prickly, 
stinging cry. 


12. Write an appreciation of the sense appeals used by Kip- 
ling in the first chapter of Captains Courageous. 


CHAPTER IV 
ELEMENTARY NARRATION 


ING oe is like Description, except that there is al- 
ways a succession of scenes or actions to be presented, 
instead of (p. 25) a single view. 

Leading writers of the day consistently impart to their nar- 
rative passages a pictorial quality which often requires both 
patience and knowledge to ensure. This means that Narra- 
tion, like drawing and description, involves certain technical 
processes, and is fundamentally an art. But happenings in 
which incongruous elements appear, or sense appeals are avail- 
able, may be made visual without much effort. This para- 
graph, from Stevenson’s Black Arrow, will illustrate: 


An arrow sang in the air, like a huge hornet; it struck 
old Appleyard between the shoulder-blades, and picrced 
him clean through, and he fell forward on his face among 
the cabbages. Hatch, with a broken cry, leapt into the 
air; then, stooping double, he ran for the cover of the 
house. And in the meantime Dick Shelton had dropped 
behind a lilac and had his cross-bow bent and shouldered, 
covering the point of the forest. 


The incident is strongly visual, yet owes its effectiveness to 
the union of unusual elements much more than to narrative 
or dramatic skill. It is therefore an instance of visual telling 
rather than of narration proper. We note also that there is a 
visual center, just as in the illustrations of descriptive telling, 
in the second chapter. And there are at least seven scenes in 
this moving picture. 

The first of these stages is the coming of the arrow, which 
is likened in a sense appeal to the approach of an angry 
hornet. There is the abhorrent spectacle of Appleyard’s body 
hit and pierced through with the black arrow. Then follows 


his fall, face downwards, among the cabbages, where he lies 
37 


388 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


with the arrow standing upright between his shoulder-blades. 
This part of the scene stays fast in our minds, as a center of 
visual intensity, while the remaining actions, of Hatch’s leap- 
ing into the air, and scampering bent double to shelter, and 
of Dick Shelton’s dropping on his knee and covering the point 
of forest,—with the stock of his cross-bow set against his shoul- 
der,—are detailed. 

We note that the several steps or movements are mentioned 
as nearly as possible in their natural order. A bystander try- 
ing afterwards to tell the story, without thinking of a plan, 
would have been likely to give it a different form. If the 
cowardice of Hatch chanced to appeal to him as comical, while 
he recalled the scene, he would perhaps attempt, and unsuc- 
cessfully, to compose the picture around that point and mo- 
ment of the transaction, as the center of interest, instead of 
the victim: 


The black arrow came like a hornet, and took Apple- 
yard right between the shoulder-blades; and at that, Hatch 
leaped a yard into the air, then ducked off behind the 
house; and by that time Dick Shelton was down on his 
knee behind a lilac bush, covering with his cross-bow the 
corner of the woods that the shaft came from. As for 
Appleyard, he fell flat amongst the cabbages he was weed- 
ing, and lay face down with the arrow sticking straight 
up out of his back. 


We need to study carefully examples such as the present, 
which require no especial skill in recounting, particulars, that 
we may prepare for real problems in narration later. We 
have noticed perhaps that ordinary happenings about us, which 
we have not chanced to see, but hear reported by persons mak- 
ing no least pretensions to literary gifts, are often pictured 
vividly in our minds. Any one of us, now recognizing the 
main principle that they use, should be able to effect as much 
consciously with the pen, as they compass unconsciously with 
the voice. Unlike them, who sometimes fail, we should make 
our work visual in every trial. The annals of every neighbor- 
hood abound with incidents for practice: 


In a house cut off by the flood, which covered the lower 
parts of the city, there was left a mother who, with her 


ELEMENTARY NARRATION 39 


infant child, had retreated to the second story. As the 
water rose towards the ceiling, she was obliged finally 
to stand upon a chair, and hold the child in the unfilled 
space above her head. When it was known that there 
were still inmates in the building, a hole was sawed in the 
roof and another in the ceiling. Through these the mother 
was lifted into a boat, where she swooned from exhaus- 
tion. 


On the platform with the preacher, sat a tall and formal 
minister, with long gray beard. As the sermon proceeded, 
a kitten appeared beside the pulpit and began to gambol, 
and make charges upon imaginary mice. When it came 
at length within the reach of the visiting clergyman, this 
man’s arm flashed out and gathered in the disturber. 
Through the remainder of the service, the kitten sported 
under the control of the minister, who stroked it con- 
stantly, now and then lowering it fr his beard, with 
which it appeared possessed to play. 


When proposed materials do not furnish, on inspection, as 
here, incongruous features to set in contrast, we can generally 
discover sense appeals of some sort that will engage imagina- 
tion. We remember that the mental light kindled by a part 
will often prove sufficient to illuminate the whole. The fol- 
lowing oral examples depend mainly, for their pictorial suc- 
cess, upon the sense appeals involved: 


In snow knee-deep, hornless black cattle were huddling. 
Across the prairie, on galloping horses, two cowboys ap- 
proached, making the snow fly upwards in clouds from 
the movement of the horses’ feet. 


A messenger boy in uniform was playing, on a long 
viaduct over railway tracks, with a snapping-turtle, left 
on the driveway probably by some returning fisherman. 
After worrying it with a stick, which it bit viciously, 
the boy caught it by the tail, and running after a passing 
cyclist, let it fasten itself by its teeth to the gray frame of 
the bicycle behind the rider. Then he followed a few 
steps shouting, “The first mud turtle that ever rode a 
wheel !” 


With instances like these from life, we may compare strong 
examples of the same class from literature. Authors are ap- 


40 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


parently as fond of stirring imagination by incongruities in 
narration as in description: 


The Montefiores stood facing one another as in Cheret’s 
picture, some dozen yards apart, and an electric light was 
thrown on the younger, who was standing against a large 
white target while the elder deliberately traced his out- 
line with bullet after bullet. He aimed with surprising 
skill, as the dark dots one after another traced the out- 
line of his body.—Maupassant. 


After some delay a larger rope was seen descending 
at the end of which a strong net was attached. On its 
reaching the rock on which we stood the net was spread 
open: my two servants sat down upon it; and the four 
corners being attached to the hook, a signal was made, 
and they began slowly ascending into the air, twisting 
round and round like a leg of mutton hanging to a bottle- 
jack. The rope was old and mended, and the height from 
the ground was, as we afterwards learned, thirty-seven 
fathoms, or 222 feet. When they reached the top I saw 
two stout monks reach their arms out of the door and 
pull in the two servants——Curzon. 


In the following, sense appeals of sound, of odor, and of 
sight, anticipate and enhance the effect from incongruity of 
parts: 


The horn of the herdsman sounded from the lower 
Alps, and neck-bells tinkled as the long lines of placid 
cows moved from the upper pastures in obedience to the 
call, breathing perfume of scented vetch and honied crim- 
son clover, leaving froth of milk from trickling udders 
on the leaves and grass as they went.—Richard Dehan. 


This further example, from the Black Arrow, is one of 
Stevenson’s most successful presentations, and deserves to be 
memorized as a model: 


The daylight, which was clear and gray, showed them 
a riband of white foot-path wandering among the gorse. 
Upon this path, stepping forth from the margin of a 
wood, a white figure now appeared. It paused a little, 
and seemed to look about; and then, at a slow pace, and 
bent almost double, it began to draw near across the 


ELEMENTARY NARRATION 41 


heath. At every step the bell clanked. Face it had none; 
a white hood, not even pierced with eye-holes, veiled the 
head; and as the creature moved, it seemed to feel its way 
with the tapping of a stick. Fear fell upon the lads, as 
cold as death. 

“A leper,” said Dick, hoarsely. 

“His touch is death,” said Matcham. “Let us run.” 


In addition to sense appeals of sight, we have here, in the 
slow measured strokes of the warning bell,—timed to the still 
slower tappings of the cane, remarkable sense appeals of 
sound. To show the extent to which masters of visual writing 
sometimes use the power of sense appeals along with incongru- 
ous suggestion, we may compare the following from Maupas- 
sant’s Toine. In this sketch, the author deals with the thrift 
of a Norman peasant woman, who hatches eggs under the 
arms of her bedridden, paralytic husband: 


About three o’clock Toine fell asleep. He slept in these 
days half the time. He was suddenly awaked by a strange 
tickling under his right arm. He placed his left hand 
on the place and lifted a tiny creature covered with yel- 
low down, which fluttered in his hand. 

His emotion was so great that he gave a cry, and let 
go his hold on the chicken, which ran across his chest. 
The customers in the shop ran into Toine’s room, and 
made a circle about him, as they would around a travel- 
ing showman. Meanwhile Madame Toine picked up the 
chicken, which had taken refuge beneath her husband’s 
beard. 


Here, as in many other instances, Maupassant appears to 
aim at vividness for the sake of vividness alone. Yet we find 
that more conservative authors write at times with equal un- 
restraint. For an illustration, compare this episode, which 
Holmes introduces in The Professor's Story: 


She opened her apron and showed a coil of rattlesnakes 
lying very peacefully in its fold. They lifted their heads 
up as if they wanted to see what was going on, but 
showed no signs of anger. 

“Lord bless you,’ said the woman, “rattlers never 
touches our folks. I’d jez ’z lieves handle these creatures 
as so many striped snakes.” 


42 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


So saying, she put their heads down with her hand and 
packed them together in her apron as if they had been 
bits of cart-rope. 


We may be sure that the sensationalism of this example and 
of the preceding will not be surpassed by anything that we 
shall later find in reputable literature. In no case should dras- 
tic instances of this sort be imitated or sought for. It is finer 
training to reproduce the commoner visual occurrences that 
we observe daily, in outside life, making them incidental to a 
larger purpose. The following are typical illustrations: 


There was dead silence for a moment, so that the buzz- 
ing of a bluebottle against the window was distinctly 
audible. 


So they sent for the old Doctor. It was not long be- 
fore the solid trot of Caustic, the old bay horse, and 
the crushing of gravel under the wheels, gave notice that 
the physician was driving up the avenue. 


Never had I conceived the possibility of a boat scam- 
pering along before the wind at such a rate as this. My 
man crossed himself. I looked at the old pilot, but he 
went on, quietly smoking his pipe with his finger on the 
bowl to keep the ashes from being blown away. 


EXERCISES 


1. Recall from recent observation some event or incident that 
will picture itself on mention of details. Determine the center of 
interest, and the proper order, and write out as a study in pic- 
torial narration. 

2. Find a good example of like kind, in some book or maga- 
zine, and write an appreciation of its merits in matter and in 
visual order of elements or parts. 

3. Report in writing, with attention to the center of interest 
and the order of parts, some happening that becomes visual on 
employment of sense appeals involved. 

4. Find a similar example, in current literature, and write an 
estimate of its worth in matter and manner. 

5. Select and report, from literature at hand, an illustration 
showing how authors make use of visual incidents, like the three 
last quoted in this chapter, to enliven and embellish their work. 


ELEMENTARY NARRATION 43 


6. Compose, from fancy, a study in narration in which incon- 
gruous factors determine the visual success of the whole. 

7. Compose another in which sense appeals materially assist 
the pictorial effect desired. 

8. Compare the narrative portions of three or four short sto- 
ries in standard magazines, and make a written appreciation of 
the best paragraphs. 

9g. Report, from the same readings, any notable use of sense 
appeals, and show how much is contributed by them to the visual 
success of the passage or passages selected. 

10. Note the effect, upon your imaging powers, from reading 
the paragraphs quoted in this chapter, and report which of them 
spread out, after the manner observed from Tennyson’s line 
(p. 35), into a larger view. Detail any striking features in the 
expanded scenes. 


CHAPTER V 
VISUAL PRESENTATION OF PERSONS 


T is possible not only to present an action visually, but also, 
by a visual action, to suggest the appearance of the person 
performing it. 

Not long ago a gentleman, in a group of friends, wishing to 
give his impressions of a noted physician, told this incident. 
Coming from the dining-room of a hotel in the physician’s 
city, he took from the rack a hat which he supposed was his. 
Inside it, in large capitals, he read 


NOT YOURS. PUT TT, DOWN: 


The name of the person under discussion was added, in smaller 
letters, below. “I put the hat down,” the speaker continued, 
“as if I had been caught in a theft.” 

The narrator paused, after relating this experience, as if he 
thought he had brought in and presented to the company the 
man in question. And in a sense this feeling was not unwar- 
ranted. By the incident told he had made all the members see, 
in fancy, not only the hat, and the words in it, but also the 
presence of the man who had thus oddly kept his hat from 
going to the wrong head. They imaged also the hotel corri- 
dor, and the rack, and their friend as he excitedly put the hat 
back in its place. 

Thus, in general, any action that suggests the individual or 
peculiar nature that has prompted it, will inspire imagination 
to construct the looks of an actor having such nature or per- 
sonality. Perhaps no one of those who heard the story about 
the hat imaged the doctor’s face or form correctly. But the 
features and the figure which they severally shaped for them- 
selves were their personal and logical conception of how a 
man with such ways of doing things would look. For the pur- 

4a 


VISUAL PRESENTATION OF PERSONS 45 


pose of the moment, nothing more was necessary. If the 
speaker had wished to present the character, a different sort 
of transaction (See p. 158) would have been chosen. Had he 
intended to show the appearance of the man exactly, he would 
have needed to produce an engraving, such as usually accom- 
pany biographical sketches, or at least a photograph. 

What this speaker did is, in the main, what the modern 
writer aims at in his visual presentation of persons. He needs 
merely to make his public construct a working likeness, and so 
institute personal relations with his subject. We cannot hold 
the attention of average minds without doing as much as that. 
We can scarcely attempt more, short of characterization, with- 
out risk of boring the reader, or of making him skip our in- 
ventorying passage or paragraph altogether. 

In the earlier sort of fiction, most writers presented their 
chief personages in a manner almost contrary. Illustrations 
were rare and costly, and readers were less impatient of par- 
ticulars. Scott, to introduce the hero of Quentin Durward, 
treats of his dress, his figure, and his features, in three para- 
graphs of details. The first and longest of these may be 
quoted here for comparison: 


The age of the young traveler might be about nineteen, 
or betwixt that and twenty; and his face and person, 
which were very prepossessing, did not, however, belong 
to the country in which he was now a sojourner. His 
short gray cloak and hose were rather of Flemish than 
of French fashion, while the smart blue bonnet, with a 
single sprig of holly and an eagle’s feather, was already 
recognized as the Scottish head-gear. His dress was very 
neat, and arranged with the precision of a youth con- 
scious of possessing a fine person. He had at his back a 
satchel, which seemed to contain a few necessaries, a 
hawking gauntlet on his left hand, though he carried no 
bird, and in his right a stout hunter’s pole. Over his 
left shoulder hung an embroidered scarf which sustained 
a small pouch of scarlet velvet, such as was then used by 
fowlers of distinction to carry their hawks’ food, and 
other matters belonging to that much-admired sport. This 
was crossed by another shoulder-belt, to which was hung 
a hunting-knife, or couteau de chasse. Instead of the 
boots of the period, he wore buskins of half-dressed deer- 
skin. 


46 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


Scott seems here to be thinking out, for himself, how his 
hero should look, rather than developing to us a definite, pre- 
conceived idea. Of course, the reader of to-day gets pictorial 
effect, to some degree, from a paragraph like this. But he 
prefers a sentence or two that will inveigle him into making, 
unconsciously and without effort of will, a conception of his 
own. The images he forms for himself, by the free play of 
his constructive powers, last longer in his mind than prescribed 
portraitures like Scott’s. Compare these paragraphs, from 
Phillpotts’ Three Brothers (p. 5), by which this author indi- 
cates the looks of his heroine and hero: 


The girl nodded. She was a dark maiden with brown 
eyes and a pretty mouth. She sniffed rather tearfully 
and wiped her eyes with a corner of her sun-bonnet. 

Beside her sat a sturdy youth with a red face and a 
little budding flaxen moustache. His countenance was 
not cast in a cheerful mould. Indeed, he frowned and 
gazed gloomily out of large gray eyes at the valley be- 
neath him. 


We note that Phillpotts first tells us, to guide imagination, 
that the heroine is a brunette, and the hero, blond, with a 
“sturdy” frame. He adds, for the hero, the sense appeals of 
a “red face,” and a “budding flaxen moustache.” With these 
elements supplied, we cannot go wrong with our conception of 
the complete presence, which is at once shaped and individ- 
ualized for us, in the one case, by a visualizing action, in the 
other, by a visualizing pose. Visualizing action is ideally sup- 
plied for the heroine by making her wipe her eyes with the 
corner of her sun-bonnet. The attitude of the youth, with 
frowning face and large gray eyes fixed on the view of a far- 
reaching valley, appeals palpably to fancy. We may well call 
it a visualizing pose. 

The features and the posture of the hero, as sketched here 
by Phillpotts, make up an unusual picture of the sort consid- 
ered, under Descriptive Telling, in Chapter I. The visualizing 
movement of the heroine clearly belongs to the class of in- 
stances discussed in Chapter ITV. We use both modes con- 
stantly in common speech. The following are average ex- 


VISUAL PRESENTATION OF PERSONS 47 


amples of visualizing action, told seemingly, by various ob- 
servers, for the sake of pictorial effect on respective hearers: 


Just at dusk a man passed our house, reading, and hold- 
ing his book close to his eyes. 


The young man seized a newspaper, wrong-side up, 
and pretended to be absorbed with the advertisements. 


Coming down the street was a boy, in brown knicker- 
bockers, eating from two ice-cream cones, one in each 
hand. 


The young lady leaned over in her saddle and flicked 
off a spot of dust, with her whip, from her yellow riding 
boot. 


The stiff-armed, rheumatic drug clerk used glue to- seal 
his letters, and never failed, after applying the glue, to 
pound on each as many as half a dozen times with his 
fist. 


The schoolmaster set copies for his pupils at the top of 
each page, and always flourished his pen three or four 
times in little circles, as if winding up a charm, before 
beginning. 


Examples of like kind are numerous in literature, and are 
often strikingly realistic and satisfying: 


Mrs. Lapham stood flapping the cheque which she held 
in her left hand against the edge of her right. 


While saying this, he was driving off the fluttering, 
cackling poultry, by kicking at them with his high top- 
boots. 


Then the old lady thrust her unmitted forefinger into 
her purse, and described circles therein with it, to find the 
small coin that she desired. 


“No,” said Lapham rather absently. He put out his 
huge foot and pushed the ground-glass door shut between 
his little den and the bookkeepers, in their larger den out- 
side. 


Once indeed I was disobedient. I refused to attend 
my father to Uttoxeter market. Pride was the source of 


48 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


that refusal, and the remembrance of it was painful. 
And to-day I have been at Uttoxeter. I went into the 
market at the time of business, uncovered my head, and 
stood with it bare, for an hour, on the spot where my fa- 
ther’s stall used to stand. 


A few minutes later an old servant in livery would 
bring in a copper pan with a bunch of mint on a hot 
brick, and stepping hurriedly upon the narrow strips of 
carpet, he would sprinkle the mint with vinegar. White 
fumes always puffed up about his wrinkled face, and he 
frowned and turned away, while the canaries in the din- 
ing-room chirped their hardest, exasperated by the hiss- 
ing of the smouldering mint. 


Examples of visualizing pose are met with in common speech 
hardly less frequently than visualizing action, and are often 
equally artistic or telling. They are used in literature to kin- 
dle, for incidental embellishment, realistic pictures in the fancy: 


Bartley had found an agreeable seat on the head of a 
half-barrel of the paint, which he was reluctant to leave. 


During the whole evening Mr. Jellyby sat in a corner 
with his head against the wall, as if he were subject to 
low spirits. 


Dr. Pym rose and planted the points of his fingers on 
the table as he did when he was specially confident of the 
clearness of his reply. 


After an interval of some minutes, which both men 
spent in looking round the dash-board from opposite sides 
to watch the stride of the horse, Bartley said, with a 
light sigh, “I had a colt once down in Maine that stepped 
just like that mare.” 


Visualizing action may introduce or merge into a visualizing 
pose, as in the last paragraph but one in the preceding, or the 
third example here. Besides these modes of arousing fancy, 
an author may stimulate his reader to image the looks of a 
person by mention of something in the clothing worn, without 
hint of frame or features: 


The head tribesmen were in full dress. Two wore 
hats that were uncommonly grand, still being cased in 


VISUAL PRESENTATION OF PERSONS 49 


those cylinders of pasteboard in which they had been 
packed. 


Or he may present a situation which, with no mention of 
clothes, will compel imaginative creation of a presence or 
figure: 


Only the two candles were burning on the table, be- 
tween which he had placed the book he was reading. 
He looked at me steadily from between the points of 
the candles. 


But these are special and partial ways of indicating the looks 
of people. The standard modern manner begins with mention 
of the age, type, class, weight, height, or some other general 
aspect, then adds something individualizing in face or dress or 
both, and ends with a striking appeal of some sort to imag- 
ination : 


Sir Charles Brewster, a lively young bachelor with high 
eyebrows, upturned tips to his moustache, and an air of 
surprise and complaisance.—Sedgwick. 


Mr. Bagnet is an ex-artillery man, tall and upright, 
with shaggy eyebrows, and whiskers like the fibers of a 
cocoanut, not a hair upon his head, and a torrid com- 
plexion.—Dickens. 


So Thresk for a moment was only aware of him as a 
big heavily built man in a smoking jacket and a starched 
white shirt; and it was to that starched white shirt that 
he spoke, making his apologies——Mason. 


The woman was a stout figure, seemingly between thirty 
and forty; she wore no cap, and her long hair fell on 
either side of her head like horse-tails half way down 
her waist; her skin was dark and swarthy, like that of 
a toad.—Borrow. 


At this point they were overtaken by a dapper little 
shopman, with a little goat’s beard, and with his fingers 
held apart like antlers, so as to keep his sleeves from 
slipping over his hands, in a long-skirted bluish coat, and 
a warm cap that resembled a bloated watermelon.—Tur- 
genev. 


50 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


Three of them, the younger ones, remained sitting, 
with a somewhat formal air, on crimson velvet chairs, 
while the fourth, about forty-five, was arranging flowers 
in a vase. She was very fat, and wore a green silk gown, 
with low neck and short sleeves, which allowed her enor- 
mous arms and stout red neck, covered with powder, to 
escape like a huge blossom from its corolla—Maupassant. 


Along the road walked an old man. He was white- 
headed as a mountain, bowed in the shoulders, and faded 
in general aspect. He wore a glazed hat, an ancient 
boat-cloak, and shoes; his brass-buttons bearing an anchor 
on their face. In his hand was a silver-headed walking 
stick, which he used as a veritable third leg, persever- 
ingly dotting the ground with its point at every few 
inches’ interval—Hardy. 


Thus, in the hundred years since Scott wrote Quentin Dur- 
ward, a simple, succinct method of presenting personal ap- 
pearance, such in fact as we hear employed daily in common 
life, has come into literary use. First, general type of form 
or presence, followed by individualizing features, with some 
visualizing action or aspect added, when available,—this is 
ours and everybody’s instinctive manner. We note that Phill- 
potts, in the paragraphs quoted, illustrates the prevailing mode. 
Variations of course are met with. All the forms considered 
in this chapter may be used severally alone, or in combinations 
of two or three, or all indeed may appear together. 

Some authors employ, at least at times, the detailed manner 
of the earlier novelists. Some masters of fiction, as Howells, 
scarcely deal with looks at all. But these writers draw char- 
acter strongly, and proper characterization, as will be seen in 
later studies, forces the mind to visualize bodily appearance 
along with personality. Similarly, short-story literature some- 
times shows no mention of looks, but seemingly for the most 
part treats of personal presence in the usual way. On the 
other hand, Maupassant, Turgenev and Tolstoy, supreme 
among the masters, delight in sketching out their creations, 
great and small alike, with short, sharp strokes, making the 
general manner standard for all literary writing. 


VISUAL PRESENTATION OF PERSONS 51 


EXERCISES 


I. Present, after the manner of the last examples in this chap- 
ter, the personal appearance of some one, of striking presence, 
whom you have known. 

2. Present the same by employing only a visualizing action. 

3. Make trial of the same using only a visualizing pose. 

4. Note and report how the personal appearance of some one 
known to you has been presented offhand, orally, in your hearing. 

5. Find and report how the chief persons in three modern 
novels are presented visually, and show which of the modes dis- 
cussed in this chapter are employed. 

6. Read Scott’s description of the Black Dwarf in (Chapter IV) 
his novel of this title. Write your judgment whether the fea- 
tures are indicated in a right order for visual effectiveness. Show 
whether mention of the clothing assists the picture, and whether 
the number of details employed could be reduced. 

7. Examine the short stories in three issues of standard maga- 
zines, and report whether personal appearance is touched upon at 
all, and if indicated, how successfully, and by what means. 

8. From some approved likeness of Napoleon, construct a para- 
graph of presentation, making it as visual and vivid as you can. 

g. Give the reasons why the following paragraph is pictorial, 
and recast after the standard manner: 


As I was loitering along a side street, the other day, a 
man went limping by. He was of large frame, wore a 
battered straw hat and faded denim trousers, and was evi- 
dently a farm hand come to town with a load of hay. 
He had lost his right leg, and stumped along on a clumsy 
wooden substitute, and steadied himself with a pitchfork 
for a staff, grasping it by the tines. 


10. Read Tennyson’s Geraint and Enid, and discuss the char- 
acters made visual by means here studied. 

11. Study Hudson’s manner of presenting the looks of Epi- 
fanio Claro, in The Purple Island (p. 40), and write a paragraph 
of appreciation. 


U, OF tb. 118, 


CHAPTER VI 
DESCRIPTION 


E have begun to think, perhaps, while studying the last 

chapters, that we are postponing the essential part of 
our subject. We have been expecting to be taught how to 
depict scenes or objects accurately and fully, with words, just 
as artists work with lines and colors. It is indeed time to make 
inquiry and trial of what can be accomplished by Exact De- 
scription. 


ists eps 


—_— 
—_—_— 
-——_—_— 

-- « 

—— 





















































agar oat RRO N/a cath GD 

soot RRMA had Mi MEANS AC Nurh Se 

ee He : Cie ee 
\\ LRA A \ \ } 1 it vi AY \ Y RRBN\t AY thy Wi 


1M NN 

We are asked, let us suppose, to present an object, such as 
here shown, by means of description, instead of a picture. 
Our task, as we recognize, is to describe the home in which the 
poet Whittier was born. We will give attention first to the 
house, which is plainly the visual center of the scene, and re- 


serve the grounds and the road for later study. 
52 


} 
‘ 
L 





DESCRIPTION 53 


Remembering, from the last chapter, that the general type 
of form should be mentioned first, to guide imagination, we 
may say that the house is a fair example of the New England 
colonial farm dwelling. We shall probably wish to add that 
the big chimney, as tall as a window, and twice as wide, stands 
at the middle of the roof. Some of us will then think that 
the front of the house should be spoken of as in length rather 
more than twice its height to the eaves, and then the door, as 
exactly at the middle, with a window over it and one on each 
side, in the second story, and two windows on each side below. 
Some one will wish to include mention of the roof as looking 
half as wide as the front is high. 

We see thus that Description is a sort of literary geography. 
The most that we can do, in attempting to reproduce an absent 
scene, is to draw a map of it. When we draw a plan of our 
village or city, we show by lines the lengths and directions of 
the streets, and the relative proportions of the blocks or 
squares. When we sketch a house or boat or chair, we trace * 
fundamental lines and angles, just as in the plan of our city. 
We produce nothing but a map in either case. The mind of 
the one who sees it makes the map over by imagination into 
the thing itself. 

But description is not so effectual as drafting maps or plans. 
When we sketch a plan, we draw lines along a surface that 
both we and our audience or public can observe at the same 
moment. When we make a description we must content our- 
selves with merely indicating lines or forms that our reader 
must draw, so to speak, in his own mind. We cannot be sure 
that he will draw all or any of these lines, though it is our 
business, by means lately studied and other expedients in 
reach, to make him draw them. With blackboard and crayon, 
we can not only sketch the outline of an object, but also add 
numerous details. In description, we must sketch without a 
blackboard, and must leave details largely to the reader’s imag- 
ination. 

So we shall need to guard against the fault of many writers, 
who seemingly think it fair to set themselves in sight of an 
object and tell us particulars about it without limit. They 
should not expect us to conceive a scene more clearly or com- 


54 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


pletely than they can carry in their own thought. Indeed, in 
our present problem, we shall not succeed in making anybody 
picture so much of Whittier’s birthplace as we retain in fancy 
after removing our eyes from the view before us. We get a 
hint of proportionate treatment by study of the following, 
from the opening paragraph of The Kentons, by Mr. Howells: 


They believed that they could not be so well anywhere 
as in the great square brick house which still kept its four 
acres about it, in the heart of the growing town where the 
trees they had planted with their own hands topped it 
on three sides and a spacious garden opened southward 
behind it to the summer wind. 


We notice that Howells does not speak here of doors or 
windows, or very definitely of surroundings. Authors of an 
older school would have told us about the roof and porch, and 
kinds of trees, and probably about the fence or hedge. We 
should like to mention, after their manner, that the door in 
our picture shows, in its upper half, two long glass panels, and 
that there is the hint or beginning of a porch above. But we 
shall do wisely, before venturing further, to put our experi- 
ment to the proof. Let us content ourselves, at this point, with 
saying that the home of the elder Whittier was a two-story 
colonial farmhouse, with its big chimney at the center of the 
roof as tall as one of the windows, and twice as broad, and 
with the front entrance, flanked with two windows on each 
side, just at the middle below. We will go to our fellows, with 
this sentence, for judgment. If they grasp these elements 
of the picture strongly, we may consider adding further 
details. 

Probably the most of, those asked to pronounce upon this 
summary of points or features will adjudge it practically clear. 
Yet it is palpably not the kind of description that we had 
hoped to make, or that our critics will warmly praise. There 
is a vital and satisfying something that is not yet here. Per- 
haps we have been assuming that, to ensure an exact concep- 
tion of an object like this, we must supply dimensions. Poe 
does this in his description of Landor’s Cottage. The first of 
his seven paragraphs begins with these specifications: 


DESCRIPTION 55 


The main building was about twenty-four feet long and 
sixteen broad—certainly not more. Its total height, from 
the ground to the apex of the roof, could not have ex- 
ceeded eighteen feet. To the west end of this structure 
was attached one about a third smaller in its propor- 
tions:—the line of its front standing back about two 
yards from that of the larger house; and the line of its 
roof of course, being considerably depressed below that 
of the roof adjoining. At right angles to those buildings 
and from the rear of the main one—not exactly in the 
middle—extended a third compartment, very small—being, 
in general, one third less than the western wing. The 
roofs of the two larger were very steep—sweeping down 
from the ridge beam with a long concave curve, and 
extending at least four feet beyond the walls in front, so 
as to form the roofs of the two piazzas.... 


How Poe chanced to write three pages of taxing details like 
these is not easy to explain. Nowhere else is he unmodern in 
description. If we are in doubt whether this method would 
serve us here, we can readily try its effectiveness upon those 
who helped us in the former case. Assuming the width of the 
door in front to be three feet and a half, we shall have a key 
to the scale on which the cut before us is drawn. Applying 
this, we might restate that the home of the Whittiers is a two- 
story farmhouse of colonial type, approximately forty feet 
in length, thirty in width, and nineteen high to the eaves, with 
a chimney six feet tall and four and a half broad at the cen- 
ter of the roof. The main entrance stands, without a porch, 
at the middle of the front, with two windows, two feet and a 
quarter wide, on each side below stairs, and one window over 
the space separating each pair and one over the entrance, in 
the second story. 

We shall doubtless find that those of us who are accustomed 
to make foot-rule and yard-stick measurements will construct 
a somewhat definite notion from these figures. But the great 
majority of readers cannot distinguish visually the difference 
between forty and fifty feet in the length or eighteen and 
twenty-one in the height of a building like the one before us. 
Indeed, such information as this would hardly bring, even to 
an architect or a carpenter, an edifying acquaintance with 
the Whittier domicile. Evidently other means or influences 


56 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


must be brought into operation to ensure the unforced pictorial 
effect which description, in present days, must carry. 

If we go back to our first quotation (p. 54), we shall find 
that Howells does not describe the house of the Kentons ex- 
cept incidentally, and not at all from his own point of view. 
He seems rather an interpreter of the home life in it, and 
makes the interest that is to govern in the case proceed from 
the family and not the building. More precisely, this author 
does not attempt to bring the house piecemeal to us, but in- 


cS 


Sake’ |} 


b ey A 
ene 3 
Adenia 





stead takes us with him to it and introduces us to the occu- 
pants, who inspire us to visualize both it and its surroundings. 
We readily conceive interest in worthy people, and carry the 
interest over to the things that attach to them. It is this inter- 
est which has made the description successful here. 

We get a hint now of what has been lacking hitherto. We 
have given too much attention to the home of the Whittiers, 
and too little to the Whittiers themselves. The special interest 
which was felt in the poet at the beginning needs to be supple- 
mented with other human interest as we go along, or before we 
finish. It requires no skilled inspection to discover that the 
dwelling we are to describe has been scrimped in several par- 


DESCRIPTION 57 


ticulars, manifestly to reduce the cost of construction. How- 
ells, noting this, would doubtless say in effect, in his own dis- 
tinguished manner, that a struggle with poverty in the older 
Whittier’s early life seemed registered in the home he built, 
which was a colonial farmhouse, scant in cornice and jut of 
roof, with the standard consequential chimney, but with the 
main entrance porchless, and with the two windows on each 
side, in the second story, reduced to one. This telltale feature 
is at once apparent when we compare the former picture with 
the fulfilled New England type just shown. 

The foreground and setting of the home we are asked to 
describe may be treated similarly. We may well consider first, 
as before, the principal details. Across some hundred and 
fifty yards of sloping meadow ground the house faces the 
sandy road near the point where it passes over a bridge of 
planks with timber guards, and from here bends to the left 
under the shadow of a towering elm and a row of firs near 
the right end of the house. A path from the entrance on this 
side crosses the roadway to the shed and barn of the farm- 
yard. Beyond the path thus crossed, the road ascends a slight 
elevation where, still curving towards the left, it drops from 
sight between stone walls. 

Once this might have ranked as practicable description. It 
is surely neither visual nor inspiring. We shall see again how 
a little human interest and sympathy will lessen the effort of 
attention. Lacking Howells’s gift of selection, we shall 
scarcely hope to reduce or intensify the details that we have 
provisionally noted. Whittier’s Snow Bound and Barefoot 
Boy furnish warrant for the means we shall use to engage 
imagination: 


From the front of the house, unfenced mowing ground 
—over which the boy Whittier barefoot may have ven- 
tured his first strokes with the scythe—slopes towards us 
some hundred paces to the sandy highway here crossed by 
a plank bridge with timber guards, “where laughed the 
brook” through summer days and nights. Beyond this 
the white road, bending about the house to the left like 
the right half of a parenthesis, separates it screened by 
a towering elm and fir-trees from the shed and farm- 
yard. Here, under the firs and across the road, on the 


58 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


night of the great storm, the boys tunneled their ‘“Alad- 
din” path through the snow to the barn, to “rouse the 
brutes prisoned within.” Along this roadway, up the 
gentle ascent at the end of the curve, the “half-buried 
oxen” of the Whittiers helped wallow out a track at dawn 
of the next morning, that the sleigh of the wise doctor 
might make its rounds. 


This does not compel an exact picture of the view before 
us. Strive as we may, we shall not come nearer to complete 
presentation of objects or scenes like the one in question, by 
words, than the point reached correspondingly in the por- 
traiture of persons in the last chapter. One of the first essen- 
tials in any art is to learn its limitations, to find out what it 
can and what it cannot do. We see again that exactness of 
detail does not in itself conduce to exactness of visual effect, 
or to visual effect at all. Systematic description can do little 
of what the art of the illustrator offers as an embellishment 
to books. But description of another sort may be more vivid 
and illuminating than ordinary or even the best engravings. 
Description does not so much consist in constructing pictures 
for the reader as in setting out materials in such a way that 
the reader must from them construct pictures for himself. 
The common notion of a mason’s work is that he builds or 
“makes” his wall. In reality, he sets bricks or stones in such 
positions as to let gravity make the wall. He fulfills condi- 
tions, and the forces of nature execute and perpetuate his 
task. Similarly, the artist puts lines and colors on a flat sur- 
face in such a way that the mind of the beholder cannot help 
seeing the product as made up of solid elements or parts. The 
business of the describer, who can use but few lines and col- 
ors, is still more to fulfill conditions so that the reader’s imag- 
ination may supply, not only the third dimension, but also 
reality and life. 

An ordinary scene or subject may be dispatched in a single 
unit or paragraph of presentation. Howells, describing the 
home of Petrarch (Italian Journeys, pp. 224-227), allows him- 
self not less than five such paragraphs. The general reader 
should not object to the use of three in presenting the home 
of Whittier’s childhood. The last of the paragraphs should 


DESCRIPTION 59 


serve as a climax, if possible, to the whole description. Since 
the house persists as the center of interest, it is evident that 
we must go back to that. We may approach it now from the 
other side of the scene: 


Beyond the woodshed attached to the left end of the 
house, a few paces away, is the beginning of a grove. 
This, after the manner of New England hedges, may have 
sheltered the home somewhat that night when the snow 
sifted through the cracks in the unplastered walls, as the 
boys lay listening to the creaking of clapboards and the 
snapping of frosted nails. It stood against the winds 
more memorably, on a December morning not many win- 
ters earlier, while the great chimney sent up abundant 
smoke overhead, and the boy John Greenleaf lay first upon 
his mother’s arm. 


It is helpful here to have noted the scantness of light in the 
second story. Evidently no one of its four large apartments 
can have had more than two windows. It would not be out 
of keeping with our purpose to recognize that one of these 
must have been the room of the poet’s mother. But this chal- 
lenge to our fancy, if it is to be used at all, should be intro- 
duced considerably earlier. Clearly it must not be appended 
to the sentence last ventured here. The idea in that, in some 
form or other, may well be utilized to close our task. 

Some of our readers will perhaps regret that we have not 
made wider use of our materials. One or another would have 
had us say more about the stream that ran whispering under 
the firs to the garden wall, or coursed in winter beneath the 
ice so mutely that no ripple could be detected by the sharpest 
ear. Some would have wished us to dwell longer on the 
sandy road, or the bridge buried a yard deep in snow, or the 
crawling train of ox-sleds and shouting, wrestling “younger 
folks.” Others, of more active imaginations or finer feeling, 
would have us hint of the first thee’s with which the Quaker 
mother fondled this new son of her hopes. Of course litera- 
ture deals largely with sentiment, and often introduces it for 
the sake of itself alone. But it is perhaps unnecessary to re- 
mind ourselves that, while a certain amount of sympathy is 
needed to inveigle the reader into spontaneous and unconscious 


60 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


exercise of his fancy, all such feeling must be kept subordi- 
nate to the purpose governing in the case. The object here is 
to describe a poet’s birthplace, not to write a biography, or 
restore the inner life of the household. 

In less formal description, and especially in fiction, the stimu- 
lative or “feeling” element is often handled with much liberty. 
This is especially true of writers noted for liveliness and orig- 
inality of conception. It is interesting to study the variety in 
examples : 


A curious home and repository was this same little rude 
cabin. The interior was just roomy enough to enable a 
man of my height—six feet—to stand upright and swing a 
cat in without knocking its brains out against the up- 
right rough-barked willow posts that made the walls. Yet 
within this limited space was gathered a store of weapons, 
tackle, and tools, sufficient to have enabled a small colony 
of men to fight the wilderness and found a city of the 
future—Hudson: Idle Days in Patagonia, p. 21. 


The author here unconventionally reminds us that imagina- 
tion has its own modes of indicating distance and dimensions. 
Hawthorne (Mosses, p. 17) thus measures to us the width of 
the Concord River: 


The stream has here about the breadth of twenty 
strokes of a swimmer’s arm,—a space not too wide when 
the bullets are whistling across. 


Sometimes the appeal to fancy is reinforced or doubled: 


It was a place of quiet houses standing beside little 
gardens. They had the usual names printed on the stucco 
gateposts. The fading light was just sufficient to read 
them. There was a Laburnum Villa, and The Cedars, 
and a Cairngorm, rising to the height of three stories, with 
a curious little turret that branched out at the top and 
was crowned with a conical roof, so that it looked as if 
wearing a witch’s cap. Especially when two small win- 
dows just below the eaves sprang suddenly into light, and 
gave one the feeling of a pair of wicked eyes suddenly 
flashed upon one.—Jerome K. Jerome: The Street of the 
Blank Wall, p. 7. 


DESCRIPTION 61 


In illustration of descriptive treatment on a larger scale, we 
may compare an example from Holmes’s Professor's Story, 
Chapter V. In this the author whimsically presents the chal- 
lenging attitudes of an Orthodox and a Unitarian Congrega- 
tional church building, ina New England village of his genera- 
tion. Seemingly because the spectacle was a familiar one ‘to 
the public for which he wrote, Holmes reverses the usual 
process, introducing the appeal to fancy first of all: 


Two meeting houses stood, on two eminences, facing 
each other, and looking like a couple of fighting-cocks 
with their necks straight up in the air,—as if they would 
flap their roofs, the next thing, and crow out of their up- 
stretched steeples, and peck at either’s glass eyes with 
their sharp-pointed weather cocks. 


Holmes now details, by accurate and appropriate types of form, 
the features of the former structure: 


The first was a good pattern of the real old-fashioned 
New England meeting house. It was a large barn with 
windows, fronted by a square tower crowned with a kind 
of wooden bell inverted and raised on legs, out of which 
rose a slender spire with the sharp-billed weathercocks at 
the summit. Inside, tall, square pews with flapping seats, 
and a gallery running round three sides of the building. 
On the fourth side the pulpit, with a huge, dusty sound- 
ing board hanging over it. 


In the next paragraph, the treatment of the Unitarian meet- 
ing house is managed similarly, with mention first of the style 
and architecture, and then of the features and furnishings 
within. From comparison of these and other examples, we 
find that those who attempt to describe the looks of houses 
and other structures appear to proceed in the same manner 
as those who try to present the looks of persons. Both seem 
to begin, as a matter of course, with general or generic aspects, 
and then pass at once to such as fix the individuality of the 
given object. Also, each strives instinctively at the close to 
conjure up or uncover something that will stamp the suggested 
whole definitively upon the reader’s or hearer’s mind. 


62 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


EXERCISES 


1. Select some house of personal interest to you, and, after 
studying its features, make a description of it and its surround- 
ings. 

2. Choose out a post-card or other picture of a home or home- 
stead, and write a description. 

3. Note and report, in writing, how the appearance and pro- 
portions of some house or other building have been presented off. 
hand, orally, in your hearing. 

4. Run through some of the short-story literature that you 
have at hand, and compare the paragraphs of description met with. 
Copy three of the best examples, with appreciations and com- 
ments. 

5. From some chapter of Dickens, quote an example of precise 
or detailed description, and show its plan and merits. 

6. In some builder’s journal, examine cuts and plans of houses 
discussed in general terms, and consider how this or that example 
might be rendered attractive to home-makers by precise descrip- 
tion. 

7. In a periodical like Harper’s Bazar, select from the half- 
tone illustrations some elaborate house and grounds; and draft out 
a study that should be visual and do approximate justice to the 
architect’s and landscape artist’s conception. 


Clo ked wR oie 19 Bl 
DESCRIPTION OF NOVEL FORMS 


W* can only say of a new object, when we try to convey 
a notion of it to those who have not yet seen it, that it 
“looks like’? something known familiarly to them as well as to 
ourselves. , 

Description is more frequently and properly employed to 
present objects wholly new, to a given audience, than things 
well known. We sometimes attempt to describe scenes or 
things to people who are essentially as well acquainted with 
them as we ourselves. Our hearers know in advance what we 
are undertaking, and are perhaps as able as we are to execute 
the task. Whether we succeed or fail, under such conditions, 
is of no great moment. 

But if we have seen some unique phenomenon, as for ex- 
ample the face of the rock here shown, and should try to pre- 
sent it without the help of a photograph, to others, we should 
undertake a veritable and profitable problem in description. 
We should be expected to make this object imaginable and 
visual to any attentive reader. 

The scene, we are told, is the front of a cave which, with 
the mountain over it, was obliterated by floods ages ago. Our 
former studies, not excepting those of the last chapter, have 
not prepared us for such a task. Were we to set about it in 
the bookman’s way, and try to bring to mind examples sinn- 
lar, which we might imitate, the ink would dry upon our pens 
again and again before we should catch the least hint how to 
begin. 

In any difficulty of this kind, it is generally best to put all 
thought of books and the ways of bookmen wholly out of mind, 
and proceed on the instant, offhand, just as if one were talk- 


ing or about to talk of the matter in question to some compan- 
63 


64 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


ion. It is of value always to stop and think, before beginning 
to write a hard sentence, how we should say it orally. There 
was natural and effective description long before writing was 
devised, and there was no dread of mistakes or criticism. 





Nothing so handicaps good work of any sort as fear, at the 
outset, that one is not going to succeed. Many of us know 
how such misgivings unnerve us when we are preparing to 
write a theme. | 

So, if some one could have taken our ink and paper away 


DESCRIPTION OF NOVEL FORMS 65 


from us, at the start, and made us feel that we were denied 
all chance to tell, except in a word, and orally, what the face 
of this rock makes us think of, we should all perhaps have said 
immediately, ‘“‘Hoof-marks, one over another, as made by 
horses on a much traveled road.” Yet, in saying this, we 
should have accomplished the vital part of a literary descrip- 
tion. 

We have perhaps observed that we are never satisfied, on 
discovering a novel object, to call it a puzzle, a mystery, and | 
withdraw attention. We instinctively continue inspecting it, 
until we detect some element or feature that exists in other 
objects, so that we can associate it with them. In other words, 
we find ourselves forced to classify it or some part of it. 
Here, by mentally bracketing the marks upon the rock with 
the tracks of horses, we seem in some degree to master the 
whole anomaly, or to add it in a sense to knowledge. 

To discover these fundamental or fanciful resemblances is 
a part of what artists call the interpretation of form, and pre- 
cedes their attempts to draw it. Before we begin to describe . 
an object, we should study it in outline, and try to realize its — 
shape by discovering what it resembles. With like purpose, 
the drawing teacher insists that we study lines and angles, to 
find the type-elements of form, before we commence a sketch. 

Here, an artist would prepare to draw the rock by virtually 
asking and answering these questions in his thought. “What 
does this part of the cliff most resemble or suggest?” “A 
gigantic horseshoe, or hoof-mark in soft earth.” “What is the 
height of the open space under “the arch?” “Imagining a 
man standing in the brushwood at the base, and inquiring how 
many times his height would have to be repeated to reach the 
top, we should answer, “Four or five times,—about twenty- 
five feet.” “What is the height of the rock?” “Twice the 
height of the arch, or fifty feet.” ‘“‘What is the distance across 
the open space at its broadest part?” “By the same standard, 
fifteen feet.” ‘How far distant are the woods seen through 
the opening?” “Perhaps half a mile.” “How far below the 
arch or ridge does the field, rising towards the woods, begin?” 
“A thousand feet or more.” “What growth partly covers the 


66 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


ridge and the descent on each side towards the horseshoe 
lines?” “Bearberry, or some similar trailing plant.” “What 
streaks or spots of white are seen beneath?’ “Patches perhaps 
of snow.” 

When the artist has found the type, and noted the propor- 
tions of the parts, he is ready to begin his sketch. We for our 
part, taking his analysis for ours, have only to determine the 
focus of interest, or visual center,—which is of course the 
opening or arch, before bringing the elements together tenta- 
tively, in descriptive form: 


From the top of the ridge, here covered with bearberry 
growth, the face of the rock, fifty feet down, looks as if 
stamped, in some plastic period, by a gigantic horse’s hoof, 
which has formed a dark archway half as high as the 
rock, and left horseshoe outlines in seams around it, as 
also a vertical crack from the top of the ridge to the top 
of the arch, twenty-five feet below. Under and beyond 
the archway, forced through the cliff as by the pointed 
frog of the enormous foot, are seen grassy fields rising 
gradually, from a thousand feet below, towards a fringe 
of woods, in front, half a mile or more away. 


The picture is of course far from complete. Will the read- 
er’s interest tolerate further details? Might we say that the 
top of the arch is filled, for a fourth of the way down, with 
bright sky and fleecy clouds over and beyond the tops of the 
woods? Shall we insert that this belt of forest, crossing the 
top of the arch, is not horizontal, but slants ten degrees to the 
left? Should the color of the cliff or of the bearberry growth 
be mentioned? Should it be specified that there are three 
horseshoe outlines, clearly defined, on the left side of the 
arch? 

The mention of the horseshoe type has enabled a visual per- 
ception in the reader’s mind. The suggestion of snow-patches, 
seen through the arch a thousand feet below, has helped stimu- 
late his imagination. But the principle, emphasized in the last 
chapter, that literary description must be read in its own light, 
forbids us to complicate the view. In fact, the paragraph is 
too heavy as it is, and most of all lacks the vital appeal to 
fancy that we expect. We must drop out our allusion to 


DESCRIPTION OF NOVEL FORMS 67 


hoof-marks, the “frog” and the vertical seam, for the first 
thing. Then we might flash on the reader’s mind the thought 
of this cave entrance as left raised and solitary a thousand 
feet in mid-air—like the topmost arch of an Italian palace wall 
standing lone and unsupported after the ravages of an earth- 
quake—to tell the story of awful inundations. How tersely 
this might be phrased will be illustrated when we have reached 
the outcome of a harder trial. 

This task we are now to take up in the Brabled! of describ- 
ing the Edwin Natural Bridge, which we postponed (p. 18) 
as too complex, for a first exercise, to undertake. As we turn 
back to inspect it, we note that its features are not unlike those 
analyzed and dealt with in the present study. We feel that it 
will be easy to reduce the unit of difficulty if we proceed after 
the manner just detailed: 


“What is the visual center of the scene?” “Clearly the 
large space beneath the bridge.” “What does the curve of 
the span make us think of, as a type of form?” “In pro- 
portions, and at either extremity, it follows lines in the 
upper half and the pointed ends of a lemon, one that has 
been pared curvingly on the under side.” ‘What type 
of structure is discovered?” “A causeway of masonry, 
in long layers of flat stone.” “What are the proportions 
of the span?” “Assuming the stature of the men on the 
bridge to be approximately six feet, we estimate that their 
distance from the ground is sixteen times their height. 
The bridge then is a hundred feet high, and two hundred 
feet long.” “How far from the bridge was the camera 
placed, when the view here used was taken?” “Perhaps 
two hundred yards.” “Was the instrument set over against 
the middle of the arch?” “No, but opposite the right 
end.” 


It is helpful, in first studies of this kind, to bring together 
orally the features to be used in the proposed description. It 
will be well also, for the time being, to have two or more stu- 
dents work thus together, each noting the effect of the other’s 
sketch, and supplying its defects. Here one might, at a ven- 
ture, propose to his companion this: 


The two-hundred foot span of the Edwin Natural 
Bridge, which in shape and color makes one think of an 


68 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


unripe lemon one fourth pared away on the under side 
almost to the points at either end, opened in front of us 
the strong afternoon light, against which the bushes 
showed sharply defined below, and men, looking no big- 
ger than their boots, who had stopped to look down at us, 
stood in relief above. 


Then the critic of the paragraph, presumably, will say: “You 
give no hint that the ridge is made up of long layers of rock. 
It is not right to leave that out. You mention the figures above 
before you give them a place to stand. Pray, how is it possible 
for men to look no taller than the boots they wear? You say 
nothing about the boulders scattered over the ground below. 
And you speak as if an unripe lemon were shaped differentiy 
from a ripe one.” After such points have been considered, 
the second experimenter will handle the materials in his way, 
and in turn receive the strictures of his companion. 

Each member of the groups severally may now try his hand 
at throwing together the first draft of a description for sub- 
mission to the class for judgment. But as we are not likely 
to satisfy ourselves in less than two or three experiments, let 
us make trial of what can be done informally,—as if, on a tour 
of the mountains in Utah, we were each sending a report in 
letters home of what we have discovered here: 


From our position, thirty rods or more from the Edwin 
Natural Bridge, which we faced, the top of the two- 
hundred foot span seemed as high as a steeple, and men 
passing along the roadway over it, and now pausing to 
look down at us, appeared no taller than toy soldiers. 
Under them was the huge arched space, showing the form 
of a lemon—and even the color of one not yet ripened 
fully—pared on the under side almost to the conical pro- 
tuberances at either end, and opening to us, over boul- 
ders fringed with bushes, the western glow of a perfect 
afternoon. 


This is something like, at least in spirit, what the public of 
the day demands. We must preserve this touch-and-go qual- 
ity, the organic freedom and naturalness of this manner, at 
whatever cost. But, on comparing our two trial paragraphs, 
we see that the visual center of the description cannot be 


DESCRIPTION OF NOVEL FORMS 69 


shifted from the arch, and that the picture loses definiteness 
and sureness of effect from mentioning, before it, the presence 
of the men. The purpose of description here is to make the 
reader see in his mind’s eye a bridge that has stood for ages, 
and not the temporary presence on it of foot-passengers or 
workmen. We must take care not to draw attention from the 
foreground or essentials of a picture by arousing interest in 
side details. What the subject calls for is a more considered 
treatment that will force the mind to distinguish important 
parts and yet hold them visually ina whole. The right product 
will thus include, with some sort of a climax at the end, most 
of these elements or features: 


In the wall-like ridge of laminated rock, the two-hun- 
dred-foot span, forming the Edwin Natural Bridge, opens 
before us the low western light in the cast and with the 
color of an enormous unripe lemon, pared, on the under 
side, nearly a third away, and fringed with bushes almost 
to the pointed protuberance at either end. Along the road- 
way, a hundred feet above, five travelers or workmen 
stand in line near the edge, facing us, to be taken into 
the picture. Beneath the bridge, boulders, some of them 
not yet rounded, strew the now dry bed of vast floods that 
broke and swirled their way through their mountain bar- 
rier thousands of years ago. 


On the basis of these suggestions, the paragraph may now be 
cast in final shape. Each member of the class should try not 
only to actualize, working by himself, his personal notion as 
to the degree of distinctness and vividness that the case calls 
for, but also gratify his sense of sound and form. Of course, 
after overcoming the difficulties which engage us here, the sub- 
ject will have grown somewhat stale. But with sufficient prac- 
tice in such studies, we can make our selection and grouping 
of parts less formal, and should be able finally to unite both in 
a single intuitive process, at the first attempt. 

We can realize at this point more fully the importance of 
distinctive ideas, or types, of form. Without discovery and use 
of the lemon outline, or some other example of the same basic 
contour, in the arch, we could not have proceeded with the de- 
scription. If there had been no style or model of a colonial 


70 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


farmhouse to refer to, in the last chapter, we should hardly 
have succeeded in making the Whittier home visual to any 
reader. The chief difference between the two examples lies in 
the fact that the fundamental idea in the Whittier house is 
obvious, while in the Edwin Bridge it is not, but must be ana- 
lyzed and interpreted out of the phenomenon at first hand. 
The problem of the cave, first in this chapter, stands midway 
in difficulty between the others, in that its essential lines are 
not obvious, yet are not difficult to identify. Indeed, the most 
untrained observer would undoubtedly come in time to recog- 
nize and remark that the curve above the entrance was of the 
horseshoe “order,” thus illustrating that the common mind, in 
its attempts at description, instinctively finds a class, though 
all unconsciously, for each novel form or object. 

The type figure in the Edwin Bridge is perhaps as hard to 
decipher as the most of those that are utilized in literary de- 
scription. The difficulty might seem to lie in the great size of 
the arch and ridge. But novel objects of small proportions are 
often far from easy to analyze. The half-tilted stone below 
the right end of the bridge would be hard to draw unless one 
detected in it the pose and essential figure of a frog. Many 
illustrations of like kind from literature might be cited. Keene 
Abbott pictures a stretch of horizon with these type-elements: 


The sky was blue, ever so blue, and all silver-notched 
at the edge, and tepeed with snowy mountain peaks. 


- This example is hardly less apt and striking: 


This eminence is a long ridge rising out of the level 
country around, like a whale’s back out of a calm sea, 
with the head and tail beneath the surface. 


Maupassant, in like manner, but with a minimum of effort, 
shows a very different picture: 


The Seine appears like a coiled snake, asleep, of which 
we do not see either the head or tail. It crosses Paris, 
and the entire field resembles an immense basin of prairies 
and forests dotted here and there by mountains, hardly 
discernible in the horizon. 


DESCRIPTION OF NOVEL FORMS 71 


Hewlett brings thus to fancy the generic lines in a fringe of 
woodland: 


Leaving the high road on his right hand, Prosper struck 
over the heath towards a solemn beech-wood which he 
took to be the very threshold of Morgraunt. As a fact 
it was no more than an outstretched finger of its hand, 
by name Cadnam Thicket. 


The following, from Frances D. Little’s Sketches in Poland 


(p. 24), is a good illustration of the more typical literary 
manner: 


Those mountains are above the snow-line, but so steep 
that snow cannot lie on them. A little lower is the Gie- 
wont, which shows from Zakopane the enormous profile 
and stark breast of a warrior, as if laid out for funeral 
on the summit of the hills. The peasants say he will 
awake one day, and blow upon his bugle such a blast as 
shall rouse all the armies of the dead, and will lead them 
to deliver Poland. 


Compare Howells’s way of presenting the streets or roads 
that divide the village of Arqua, in the story of his visit (Jtal- 
tan Journeys, p. 221), to the home of Petrarch: 


I am here tempted to say that Arqua is in the figure 
of a man stretched upon the hill slope. The head which 
is Petrarch’s house rests upon the summit. The care- 
lessly tossed arms lie abroad from this in one direction, 
and the legs in the opposite quarter. We followed our 
guide up the right leg, which is a gentle and easy ascent 
in the general likeness of a street. Old-world stone cot- 
tages crouch on either side. 


A less daring and less compelling type-idea is used by Fogaz- 
zaro, in The Sinner, to suggest certain rugged features in the 
large: 


Imagine the monstrous, horned, great-grandsire of all 
elephants barring the broad way, his flat skull thrust for- 
ward into the sunlight and upholding the burden of a 
colossal pyramid, his swollen flanks fading out into the 
shadow behind. So, between two narrow valleys, carved 


72 HOW .TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


out by the strokes of a god, does the spur supporting Vena 
di Fonte Alta stretch outward from the base of Picco 
Astore, its two horns fronting the great stone quarry of 
Villascura. Towering above the abyss encircling them, 
the fir forests and beech groves of Vena sway against a 
background of sky, here and there spotted with pale 
emerald,—where the fields thrust them asunder and over- 
spread, and dotted here and there with red and white 
where cottages are crowded together in groups. He who 
surveys them from the summit of the steep and towering 
Picco Astore, or of the lofty, cloud-crested mountains of 
Val Posina, may not respond to their tender and refining 
influence. Yet the traveler who threads their sinuous 
depths asks himself whether, when the world was young, 
this were not the scene of the brief loves of sad genii, of 
the hills and of glad spirits of the air, whether the earth, 
in deference to their altering moods, did not transform 
itself about them again and again, now tendering leafy 
bowers for reposeful meditation, now encircling them with 
scenes of mirth or sadness, of deep thought or merry 
sport,—all which ceasing as the lovers on a sudden dis- 
appear, the spot retains for ever the shape it last as- 
sumed. 


To instance an example of ambitious description, designed 
to attract and charm through the fiction of a medizval visit to 
Italy, we quote from Hewlett’s Earthwork, at the opening of 
Chapter V. We note that the generic or type idea and the 
appeal to fancy are here again brought close together: 


“There,” said my Roman escort, as we forded the Tiber 
near Torgiano, “the haze is lifting: behold august Peru- 
gia.” I looked out over the misty plain, and saw the 
spiked ridge of a hill, serried with towers and beliries as 
a port with ships’ masts; then the grey stone walls and 
escarpments warm in the sun; finally a mouth to the city, 
which seemed to engulph both the white road and the citi- 
zens walking to and fro upon it like flies. 


To close our illustrations with a specimen of clear and care- 
ful writing, we select the following passage from Stevenson. 
It is of course remarkable for its typical construction as well 
as its vividness and simplicity: 


Down in the bottom of a bow! of forest, the lights of 
the little town glittered in a pattern, street crossing street. 


DESCRIPTION OF NOVEL FORMS 73 


Away by itself on the right, the palace was glowing like 
a factory. 


We may sum up our findings in this chapter by observing 
that Stevenson here presents the forest by forcing us to visual- 
ize it as a tremendous bowl. Similarly, he shows the town by 
classing it with a piece of goods or carpet woven in bright 
squares with pattern regularity. For a climax, he makes us 
see the palace with all its windows equally aglow by appealing 
to our memory of some huge factory lighted up for work at 
night. Finding thus the common element that enables us to 
classify the novel object with a familiar one is an act or proc- 
ess of “interpretation.” This is what has happened when we 
say that the novel object “looks like” some other object that 
we and our readers know familiarly. When we have so classi- 
fied, the unfamiliar thing falls heir to the acquaintance we 
have with the basic form, and becomes mentally visual with it. 


EXERCISES 


1. Sketch out a plan for the presentation of some scene or 
scenery that you have at some time thought of as desirable to 
describe. Determine the interpretative type, the main details, and. 
the stimulating close, and lay aside for later execution. 

2. From a photograph, or from memory, make a description of 
the Washington Monument. 

3. Study the presentation, in Howells’s Italian Journeys, of 
Petrarch’s house. Write a careful summary and appreciation. 

4. Recall, from recent reading, some good description of natu- 
ral scenery. Reread, and report concerning its worth and manner. 

5. Keep in mind to observe, for a later report, how people pre- 
sent orally, on the spur of the moment, the appearance of new 
objects, and with what success. 

6. From Dickens, quote and discuss the description of some 
house and surroundings, as of Miss Havisham’s home in Great 
Expectations. 

7. Try whether you can present visually the interior of some 
house with which you are familiar. 

8. Report whether the plat of your city, or farm or village, fur- 
nishes or follows any palpable idea of form. Show whether other 
related types, if a description were called for, might be utilized. 


74 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


9. Work out the plan of the description outlined and prepared 
for in Exercise I, and cast in finished form. 

10. Recall to mind some huge structure, or vast natural object, 
that you have at some time seen, and describe it visually. 

11. Choose out some important public building in your city or 
neighborhood that has impressed you by its majesty or strength, 
determine its basic principle of form, and describe it as visually 
and vividly as you can. 

12. Show what figure is discoverable in the outline of a cliff, 
or of hills, or forest, or mountains, which you have at one time or 
another seen, or perhaps live in sight of daily. Sketch out a plan 
for use in a detailed description. 

13. From your reading in current magazines or other literature 
quote and evaluate two examples of description under the present 
head of novel objects. | 

14. Construct, from fancy, some sea, or landscape, or mountain 
view, and present as clearly and vividly as you can, making it your 
second finished study in these exercises. 


CHAPTER VIII 


DESCRIPTION OF LESSER AND MORE FAMILIAR OBJECTS 


HE fundamental element in description, as in drawing, 
is the governing line or angle. When we have discoy- 
ered this vital and enabling part, in any given object, we can 
generally describe it, as well as sketch it, with little difficulty. 


We have seen how the center of interest in 
a large object helps us grasp and express its 
unity in description. This unity, as has just 
been shown, may be classed and indicated un- 
der some especial type of form. We can now 
employ the same process for shorter and 
simpler studies, and by the discovered type 
outline, force the given object upon our 
reader’s imagination. 

Let us suppose that we have the problem of 
describing this figure of a clock. Its type is 
peculiar, being shaped to allow the 
swinging of a pendulum within the 
case. We are conscious of the 
form as familiar, but we cannot for 
the moment identify or recall it. 
Presently we recognize that the 
fundamental lines are the same, es- 








sentially, as those seen in a pair of sheep shears or 
grass shears. We note the shape at the top, the 
slope and angle on each side, and wonder whether 
the designer was aware that he was appropriating 
a type idea. In any case, we may describe by 
stating that this clock borrows the outline of a pair 


of grass shears, its circular part containing the 
works and face, while the points of the blades, attached to a 
concave moulding, surmount the ends of a rectangular box, 


75 


76 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


half the diameter of the face in depth, which holds the key for 
winding. 

Now that our attention is called to the underlying idea of 
form in this picture, we realize that various conventional shapes 
of clock-frames are borrowed from common things. We at 
once recall the plain box pattern, the gravestone figure, the 
type of the sheep’s head, and of the banjo model. When we 
have discovered such unifying form, in any object, we know 
that we can communicate or express that object. It is only by 
parts known to our reader that we can indicate to him a whole 
that he does not know. By appeal to the fundamental lines in 
a sheep’s-head-and-ears, in a banjo, a pair of grass shears, or 
any other determinable type of form, we can make him image 
the outline of the clocks respectively prefigured, whether he is 
willing or not willing to be told. 

Thus is imagination in general more concerned with the 
framework, the geometry of an object, than with the details 
of its construction. If the governing line or lines in which 
such object is designed be given, our imaging powers will for 
the most part make over the outline, supplying the third di- 
mension, into a finished likeness. We have no doubt been 
taught that the essential element in all work of the painter is 
right drawing. It is not less vital in description. Not only 
will the exact line or angle bring with it, on mention, other 
features, but it will often stimulate the mind to construct the 
whole appearance of the person or object to be described. 
Note the effect, upon imagination, of this very ordinary illus- 
tration: 


_ The conductor stood leaning towards the orchestra, dur- 
ing the whole interruption, with his baton at an angle of 
forty-five degrees, while he waited to resume. 


From the suggestion of this angle, we picture the pose of the 
conductor, and with this, imagination goes on to produce the 
orchestra, which he faces, and then also the audience behind 
him. 

Our minds catch the pose, and complete the image, simi- 
larly, in less public or formal situations: 


DESCRIPTION OF MORE FAMILIAR OBJECTS 77 


He sat facing me, and resting his elbow on the chair 
arm, while he held his pen towards me horizontally, at 
the level of his chin. 


We easily realize how the governing idea in each of these 
examples enforces the picture: 


The fresh harrow-lines seemed to stretch like the chan- 
nellings in a piece of new corduroy. 


The thousand-acre wheat field was enclosed by a zig- 
zag rail fence, seven feet high, with its stakes set at the 
angle of sawhorse legs. 


In the center of a group of boys sprawling on the 
ground sat one prim figure, bolt upright, making one 
think of a carpenter’s square set up on edge. 


The weather had turned cold again. It was freezing 
hard. The gutters, congealed while still flowing, were 
surfaced with two ribbons of ice alongside the pavements. 


The gatepost was not a disused twenty-four pounder 
with a shot in its muzzle, as so many posts are, but a 
real architectural post, cast from a pattern at the foundry. 


His face was almost the face of the caricature Ameri- 
can: slightly curved vertical lines enclosed his mouth in 
their parenthesis. 


Here the description is ineffectual until we reach the final word. 
Then through the type-form mentioned, the whole face be- 
comes definitely visual. 

A “type” of form is a shape that has been recognized as dis- 
tinct and constant. The form of the harp in the days of min- 
strelsy is such a type. The angle of the joint in the hind leg 
of a horse is a type-form, and is called a gambrel. When 
houses began to be built with roofs of double slant, each side 
showing the same angle as the hind leg of a horse, the inno- 
vation was called a gambrel roof. The house in which Haw- 
thorne was born furnishes a good example. 

When a type-form is borrowed, as here from the hind leg 
of a horse, we give it the name of the object which exhibits it, 


78 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


and call the word so used a figure. Thus, “gambrel,” as the 
name of the hock joint of a horse, is literal, but as the name 
of a roof, or the stick showing two gambrel angles and used 
by butchers, it is a figure. The same is true more notably of 
“pyramid,” which seems to have been used originally as the 
name of an Egyptian tomb, but in time came to be applied, as 
a figure, to its distinctive form. 
















SS SS aeaittage i PE Fa 
PS feel let 
BAW || meee 



















Kis B —, 
= PZ 
SRW MS 













er 23 


Zz SINS 








In all like instances in which we appeal to our hearer’s or 
reader’s knowledge of type forms, as seen in familiar objects, 
we describe by figures. This is clearly due to necessity rather 
than to choice. To state again the principle, which is too little 
realized, we cannot make an object that is unknown to our 
reader visual to him except by lines or elements that he has 
seen. We cannot guide his conceptions in any other way. 
We may well dwell for a moment upon the variety of figures 
used thus in description: 


Kidd could see the finger of the dial stand up dark 
against the sky like the dorsal fin of a shark. 


DESCRIPTION OF MORE FAMILIAR OBJECTS 79 


The end of the white-framed arbor was rounded at the 
top much like the roof of a baker’s wagon. 


In the grey distance the big band-stand of a watering- 
place stood up like a giant mushroom with six legs, 


At the middle of the ravine, a mound of broken stoné, 
fifty feet high and shaped like a big inverted basin, sup- 
ported the spans of steel. 


The black dredge, poised in air before us, had a form 
like a grocer’s sugar-scoop, cut square at the closed end, 
and attached at right angles to a beam. 


As it was not a time for standing among trees, we ran 
out of the wood and up and down the moss-grown steps 
which crossed the plantation fence like two broad-staved 
ladders placed back to back. 


When the resemblance is more vividly discerned, the figure 
changes (p. 267) from simile to metaphor. Instead of con- 
ceiving the thing to be described as like the object exhibiting 
the type, we pretend that it is the object itself: 


Here is Constantine, the phenomenal city, guarded by a 
serpent writhing at its feet, the Roumel, which might have 
been dreamed of by Dante, flowing at the bottom of an 
abyss. 


When we came out again the balloon was balancing, 
enormous and transparent, a prodigious golden fruit, a 
fantastic pear which had ripened, covered by the last 
rays of the setting sun. 


As was shown in the last chapter, it 1s instinctive thus to 
classify objects, for the moment, in order to describe them. 
This instinct manifests itself in our earliest years. Often, in 
its first discernments of type relations, it shows all the keen- 
ness of the maturest mind. 

A child of two that had learned certain letters of the alpha- 
bet from painted blocks, on seeing the new moon for the first 
time, exclaimed excitedly, “Big D up high.” It could not help 
distinguishing the curved type line of the letter, and classifying 
the moon as a new example of the capital “D.”’ Ruskin speaks 
similarly, in the first chapter of Preterita, of watching, at an 


80 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


age not greater, “a marvellous iron post, out of which the 
water carts were filled through beautiful trap-doors, by pipes 


FIGURE I 





like boa-constrictors.” “The carpet,” he 
tells us further, “and what patterns I could 
find in bed-covers, dresses, or wall-papers 
to be examined, were my chief resources.” 
Most of us remember how we used to 
identify, in childhood, familiar shapes in 
frescoes, in forms of clouds, or distant 
mountains, or the outline of a grove or 
forest. Many of us doubtless have not 
altogether disused this faculty in later 
years. 

But our earlier education should have en- 
sured, along with the development of inner 
discernment, the strengthening of our 
powers of outer perceiving and knowing. 
It is not the business of the artist to do 
our observing for us. His function is not 
so much to show us new things as to make 
us see familiar things more intimately. The 
mind trained to detect the vital elements of 


form in common objects is never at a loss 
how to describe. Almost everything that it 
observes will remind it of some type origi- 
nal. There is an almost unlimited array of 
duplications. There are also combinations 
of types in many instances. We can il- 
lustrate with this design of a receptacle for 
flowers. 

It is evident that the object here shown 
(Fig. 1) is not constructed on the legitimate 
lines of a vase. The typical form of the 
proper vase was fixed (Fig. 2) centuries 
ago, and school children are taught to draw 
it thus, from memory, at a moment’s notice. 
But the outline of the flower-holder, in Fig. 
1, borrows first the idea of a cylinder or 


shaft, its height being three times its diameter. 





FIGURE 2 


It shows a top 


flaring with the curves at the muzzle (Fig. 3) of a blunderbuss, 


DESCRIPTION OF MORE FAMILIAR OBJECTS 81 


and cut (Fig. 4) into curved lattice lines and spaces. Between 
the shaft and the base, which is of the type known as cavetto, is 


introduced a moulding with convex edge. Thus 
there are combined here five distinct types of form, 
only the last two being appropriate to a vase. 
When we have recognized these fundamental ele- 
ments, we can use them as familiar parts to en- 
force a conception of this novel object upon the 
reader’s mind. 

When the governing line or angle cannot be 
shown, but may be appealed to in the memory of 
the reader, the effect is often equally visual and 
strong. The following, from Holmes’s Professor's 
Story, brings back to us the essence of what we 
have often seen: 


Mrs. Peckham laid her large, flaccid arm 
in the sharp angle made by the black sleeve 
which held the bony limb her husband 
offered, and the two took the stair and struck 
out for the parlor. 





FIGURE 3 





FIGURE 4 


Type forms of which we are 
merely subconscious will often dis- 
close themselves, if insistently 
summoned, and serve us with sur- 
prising vividness and power. I 
have chanced, for example, to see 
a rugged tree leaning over a steep 
rock at the border of the sea. I 
wish to put this tree and its wild 
surroundings into my portfolio, so 
to speak, of subjects and materials 
for description. I expect, at some 
time or other, to make use of the 
scene. But I shall not succeed in 
making it visual to anybody unless 
I can draw the tree. I soon be- 
come aware that its outline is not 
new, but I cannot identify the lines 


or angles that describe it. If I could bring back its type, I am 
sure that I could immediately call up a visual image to every 


82 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


reader. At length I discover and supply the figure, and I set 
down that the old olive tree, shaped like the frame of an ancient, 





pert in the art of seeing, of observa- 
tion. It is necessary next, to possess 
the power of instant and complete 
analysis,—the power, that is, of re- 
solving things that we do not know 
into parts or elements that we do 
know. “All art is seeing and say- 
ing.” Observation and analysis make 
up the first half of this whole of 
art, and masters in every field agree 
that it is the harder half. From their 
testimony we may assure ourselves 
that we shall hardly fail, if we work 


or for that matter 
of a modern, harp, 
leans out at a height 
of not less than a 
hundred feet above 
the sea, breaking 
into foam below. 
The illustrations 
of this chapter show 
what a wealth of 
means we all carry 
about with us, and 
how practicable are 
the tasks of ordinary 
description. To be 
expert in the art of 
writing it is neces- 
sary to be widely ex- 





patiently and diligently, of finding a way to say effectively 
whatever we may have been able to see aright and fully. 


EXERCISES 


1. Identify and explain the various borrowed forms that you 
have seen in clocks at home or in neighbors’ houses. 


DESCRIPTION OF MORE FAMILIAR OBJECTS — 83 


2. Find and report the typical forms discovered in a gatepost, a 
gate, a cupola, a business block, a monument, a bracolite lamp, an 
ink-stand, and a walking-stick. Choose two of these, and write 
for each a paragraph of description. 

3. Find typical lines and make a description, from cut in dic- 
tionary, of a sikhra. 

4. Describe the house in which Hawthorne was born. 

5. Report examples of description, through typical forms, in 
current or other literature. 

6. Identify the typical line utilized and describe a tennis racket. 

7. Find and report upon as many borrowed types of form in 
women’s hats of the period as you can. Describe three of these 
examples. 

8. Make a description, through some new form-type discovered 
since the last exercise, of another residence in your city. 

g. Write a paragraph of appreciation or criticism on the ef- 
fectiveness and propriety of the typical forms used in this de- 
scription : 


He liked to let the work wait while he looked over the 
Thal and noted the attenuated columns of smoke rising 
like exclamation points from the tenant farms. 


10. Report upon the frequency and success of Kipling’s descrip- 
tions of familiar things. 

11. Describe the Zeppelin balloon. 

12. Describe, from cut under this word in the dictionary, the 
yak. 

13. Describe the Japanese coin called kobang. 

14. Describe, as shown in dictionary, the gila monster. 


CHAPTER IX 
DESCRIPTION OF TYPES OF COLOR 


T has been shown that, in addressing imagination, a part is 

often equal to the whole. Any attempt to present the looks 
and presence of a person by a summary of details, instead of 
two or three suggestive elements, has been found to be inef- 
fectual. We have just seen how the governing line or angle 
will arouse our minds, for the purposes of description, to more 
organic and definite visualization than any detailed effort to 
present the whole of which it is a part. 

The principle is notably illustrated when the part is a color. 
Often, by indicating to the reader an exact hue or shade, we 
can make the entire object exhibiting it visual to his fancy. 
Writers whose sense of color is acute make large use of this 
open secret. Hardy furnishes a good first example: 


The lightning now was of the color of silver, and 
gleamed in the heavens like a mailed army. Every hedge, 
bush, and tree was distinct as in a line engraving. A 
poplar in the immediate foreground was like an ink-stroke 
on burnished tin. 


This picture gives us no hint as to the form of the objects 
named, or even of the shapes traced out by the gleams of light- 
ning. Yet the author has made us see a countryside with 
hedges, trees, and bushes, as also the sky above it. He tells 
us that the lightning was of a silver hue, and we immediately 
make streams of lightning after our own notion, to display this 
hue, and we create a sky for them to shine in. He says that 
a poplar in the foreground looked black as an ink-stroke on 
new tin, and we construct a poplar tree—which in nature is 
gray green—and set it black against this screen of silver light. 
Hardy has furnished us nothing precise except the colors. 
With these, we conceive a scene that, to us, is precise and defi- 


nite in all details besides. 
84 


DESCRIPTION OF TYPES OF COLOR 85 


Evidently each color here is a certain something not less 
significant and peculiar than the types of form studied in pre- 
ceding chapters. Like them it is an elemental notion that 
stands distinct and constant in our minds. By presenting a 
“type” color, Hardy brings the generic thing mentioned as ex- 
hibiting it along with it concretely in our thought. By a color 
thus he makes us see the whole of which the color is a char- 
acteristic part. The view he gives us is of course not the 
veritable scene except its hues. But if he had tried by other 
means to make it more accurately visual, it would perhaps not 
have become visual at all. 

Typical forms are distinguished perhaps more exactly, by 
the most of us, than strictly typical divisions of color. Per- 
sons not endowed with an active sense of color take little pains 
to exercise it. Yet, speaking generally, types of form arouse 
imagination less quickly and completely than types of color. 
Tennyson shows an almost sensational mastery of description 
by these means: 


Deep on the convent roof the snows 
Are sparkling to the moon; 


the loud stream 
Forth issuing from his portals in the crag 
Ran amber to the west; 


they that heard it sigh’d... 
Till the fountain spouted, showering wide 
Sleet of diamond drift and pearly hail. 


Authors often borrow this expedient of color, without defi- 
nite suggestion of form, in attempts at exact description: 


When evening came I crept down to the port, went on 
board, and crowded myself up in the hole of a cabin 
among ropes and sails, and went to sleep at once, and 
did not wake again till we arrived within a short distance 
of the most magnificent mountain imaginable, rising in a 
peak of white marble ten thousand feet straight out of the 
sea—Curzon: Monasteries of the Levant, p. 241. 


The earth shakes, and in front of me, from an open- 
ing not bigger than a man’s head, issues with vast force a 
tremendous jet of flame and vapor, while from the edge 


86 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


of this hole pours the liquid sulphur, gilded by the fire. 
It gathers immediately into a saffron lake around this fan- 
tastic spring. Farther away, other apertures throw forth 
white steam, which lifts itself heavily in the blue air.— 
Maupassant: The Wandering Life, p. 66. 


For more expert description through the stimulus of color, 
we naturally turn to authors who, like Ruskin, are also artists 
or art-critics. Théophile Gautier, who was a painter as well 
as man of letters, furnishes remarkable examples of this kind. 
We quote the following passages from his Spanish papers: 


A pitiless, blinding light penetrated everywhere. The 
sky was like molten metal, the paving-stones shone as if 
they had been waxed and polished, the white-washed walls 
sparkled like mica. 


Not far from the old San Domingo convent, in the 
Antequerula quarter in Granada, on the slope of a hill, 
rose a dazzlingly white house, which shone like a silver 
block amid the dark-green foliage of the surrounding 
trees. 


This crenellated, massive tower, glazed with orange and 
red, against a background of crude sky, with an abyss of 
vegetation behind it, the city on a precipice, and in the 
distance long mountain chains veined with a thousand 
tints like African porphyry, forms a splendid and majestic 
entrance to the Arab palace. 


A spectacle of which the Northern peoples can form no 
notion, is the Alameda in Granada. The Sierra Nevada, 
the notched outline of which infolds the city on that side, 
assumes unimaginable tints. All the slopes, all the sum- 
mits, smitten by the light, turn rose-color, but a dazzling 
rose, ideal, fabulous, silver-frosted, striped with iris, and 
opaline reflections that would make the purest colors on 
a painter’s palette seem muddy, mother of pearl tones, 
ruby transparencies, veins of agate and aventurine which 
would challenge the fairy jewels of the Thousand and One 
Nights. Valleys, crevices, windings, every spot which the 
rays of the setting sun do not reach, all turn into a blue 
which vies with the azure of the sky, of ice, of lapis lazullt, 
of sapphire. This contrast of tone between the light and 
shadow has a marvelous effect: the mountain seems to 
have arrayed itself in changing, spangled, silver-ribbed 
silk. 


DESCRIPTION OF TYPES OF COLOR 87 


Generic hints of form, like block, that is “cube,” in the sec- 
ond example, if such could have been supplied throughout, 
would have aided imagination materially here. Ruskin’s de- 
scription of the Falls of the Rhine gives us even fewer sug- 
gestions of proportion and outline: 


Stand for half an hour beside the fall of Schaffhausen 
on the north side where the rapids are long, and watch 
how the vault of water first bends, unbroken, in pure pol- 
ished velocity, over the arching rocks at the brow of the 
cataract, covering them with a dome of crystal twenty feet 
thick—so swift that its motion is unseen except when a 
foam globe from above darts over it like a fallen star; 
and how the trees are lighted above it under all their 
leaves, at the instant that it breaks into foam; and how 
all the hollows of that foam burn with green fire like so 
much shattering chrysoprase; and how, ever and anon, 
startling you with its white flash, a jet of spray leaps 
hissing out of the fall like a rocket, bursting in the wind 
and driven away in dust, filling the air with light. 


Scenes such as have been presented thus far in this chapter 
obviously engage attention because of greatness of the forces 
displayed, or vastness of view, or intensity of sense appeals. 
The spirit of the spectacle has in each case inspired the writer, 
who in turn intends and expects, by his description, to arouse 
the imagination of his reader. As in contrast with this kind 
of presentation, let us study the spirit and manner of the fol- 
lowing examples: 


He was peeling off the bit of plaster on her arm, under 
which the scrape had turned the color of an unripe black- 
berry.—Hardy. 


The houses scattered in little groups throughout the land 
are of a remarkable color, not black, nor white nor yellow, 
but exhibiting the shade of roast turkey.—Gautier. 


They were breaking up the masses of curd before put- 
ting them into the vats; and amid the immaculate white- 
ness of the curds Tess D’Urberville’s hands showed them- 
selves of the pinkness of the rose—Hardy. 


Down it there came in a drowsy amble an old white bob- 
tail horse, his polished coat shining like silver when he 


88 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


crossed an expanse of sunlight, fading into spectral pale- 
ness when he passed under the rayless trees—James Lane 
Allen. 

He walked down Gillingham Street on the left-hand 
side, glancing across at the house-fronts opposite until he 
saw clean curtains in the same window with a card of 
chocolate color declaring in silver letters that here were 
vacant rooms. A dirty girl, presenting the heels and soles 
of spring-side boots to his view, was cleaning steps al- 
ready less dirty than herself.—Robert McDonald. 


The apple trees were in blossom, the roosters crowed 
on the compost heap. The whole house seemed empty, 
the farm hired men had gone to the fields to take up their 
spring tasks He stopped by the gate and looked over into 
the yard. The dog was sleeping outside his kennel. Three 
calves were slowly walking, in single file, towards the 
pond. A big gobbler was strutting before the door, parad- 
ing before the hen turkeys like a singer on the opera 
stage.—Maupassant. 


The last paragraph, as we note, is not dependent like the 
others upon sense appeals of color, yet is hardly less definite 
and pictorial. All of the examples here deal with the every- 
day life of common folk. They are seen to correspond to 
what is known in painting as genre work. ‘The effect from 
treatment of this kind is often not less clear and satisfying 
than from the species of description first considered in this 
chapter. In the present illustrations there is nothing sensa- 
tional or surprising, there is no epic appeal to imagination, 
there are no scenes or features of surpassing beauty. The 
forces engaged within us are not of sublimity, but of sym- 
pathy, of interest in the domestic concerns of people. We are 
glad to be admitted, for the moment, to silent and unseen par- 
ticipation in the idyllic life portrayed. The subjects in the 
last examples, the attitude in each instance of the author’s 
mind, and the effect of the descriptions severally, belong to 
what is known in literature and art as Realism. 

It is thus clear that there are two divisions of description, 
as indeed of literature at large. As there are two forms of 
treatment, there should be also two classes of subjects, and 
two kinds of inspiration. Sublime spectacles like the sky 


DESCRIPTION OF TYPES OF COLOR 89 


gleaming with silver lightning, the mountains of Granada, and 
the Falls of Schaffhausen, call for serious and elevated treat- 
ment. With the strength of the hills and the wild forces of 
the lightning, the cataract, and the earthquake are associated, 
though distantly, the martial or chivalrous in human endeavor, 
and the mysterious or portentous in outside life. All subjects 
calling similarly for imaginative or impassioned handling, and 
involving sentiment more than facts or knowledge, are prop- 
erly classed together under the general name Romantic. 

Our studies have been carried on mainly, in previous chap- 
ters, with instances borrowed from the romantic class of liter- 
ary materials. Art began with this sort of inspiration, and 
the first literature was a literature of will and passion. The 
youth of a race is strenuous, and makes history by magnify- 
ing the deeds of kings and chieftains. Under a riper civiliza- 
tion, peoples furnish the subject matter for history, and their 
kings serve them. ‘The literature of the hearth displaces the 
literature of the camp fire. This does not mean that Realism 
is a nobler form of literature than Romanticism. Both are 
necessary and normal, and should be studied with equal care. 

The effectiveness of realistic description is often increased 
by the device of presenting the scene or object as having been 
discovered, not by the writer, but some proxy. We see better, 
in such cases, through the eyes or experiences of another. 
These further examples of color, from Hardy, will illustrate: 


Oak saw coming down the incline before him an orna- 
mental spring wagon, painted yellow and gaily marked, 
drawn by two horses, a wagoner walking alongside bear- 
ing a whip perpendicularly. 


While she looked a heron arose on that side of the 
sky and flew on with his face towards the sun. He had 
come dripping wet from some pool in the valleys, and as 
he flew the edges and lining of his wings, his thighs, 
and his breast were so caught by the bright sunbeams that 
he appeared as if formed of burnished silver. 


When he drew nearer he perceived it to be a spring 
van, ordinary in shape, but singular in color, this being 
a lurid red. The driver walked beside it, and like his van 
he was completely red. One dye of that tincture covered 


90 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


his clothes, the cap upon his head, his boots, his hands. 
He was not temporarily overlaid with this color of red- 
dle: it permeated him. 


Objects that occasion distinct and unvarying experiences 
respectively with the sense of touch or of taste or of odor are 
of the same nature as types of color and types of form. They 
are often used by writers skilful, like Turgenev and Hardy, in 
realistic description. The odors severally of nuts, of a fog of 
flour, of new-mown hay, of flowers, of mist, are all typical, 
since they have produced at some time or another, with the 
most of us, experiences that are persistent and individual. The 
following paragraphs,—again from Hardy,—appeal to our 
memory of these typical sensations: 


Bob shut the trap, the roar ceased, and they went on 
to the inner part of the mill, where the air was warm 
and nutty, and pervaded with a fog of flour. 


Immediately he began to descend from the upland to the 
fat alluvial soil below, the atmosphere grew heavier, the 
languid perfume of the summer fruits, the mists, the hay, 
the flowers, formed therein a vast pool of odor which 
at this hour seemed to make the animals, the very bees 
and butterflies drowsy. 


The illustrations in this chapter have perhaps helped us to 
realize more clearly the nature and manner of our acquaintance 
with the outside world. We refer each fresh sensation to 
some class of experiences had already, or, if the sensation be 
new, we set up with it a new class in which to place further 
experiences of this kind. When we describe by form or color 
or any other product of sensation, we do not impart. We 
merely appeal to notions of form or color or taste or touch or 
odor that our reader brings with him. We cannot do more 
by language than make him summon and combine in thought 
such type notions or concepts as, from precedent experiences, 
he has personally acquired. To do more would require that 
we furnish, by cut or painting, the new sensation and the new 
notion that the scene or object to be described involves. 

This explains in a measure the finer sort of realistic descrip- 
tion illustrated in the last example and in the passage quoted 


DESCRIPTION OF TYPES OF COLOR 91 


(p. 88) from Maupassant. Numberless impressions from 
idyllic scenes or moments lie half-forgotten in our conscious- 
ness. Certain aspects or elements of these have at some time 
Or various times given us delight. New mention of such 
aspects will make us construct in imagination, with these as 
parts, new wholes that will repeat our former pleasure. The 
skilful writer knows how to reach us with an array of pas- 
toral features as well as with the single drastic sense appeals 
discussed in Chapter III. We need like him to find out what 
aspects of country life are always pleasurable, and what are 
unliterary and inert or worse. Yet few such scenes or situa- 
tions can not be transfigured, and truthfully, by the light of 
fancy. Later chapters will lead us farther into this interesting 
study. 


EXERCISES 


1. By use of a color or of colors, make a greenhouse or a gar- 
den visual. Change the study, by adding hints of form, into a vir- 
tually accurate description. 

2. Try whether, by mention of an eccentric color in the dress, 
but without further means, you can make the person displaying it 
visual. Correct the product, if necessary, by suggestions of form 
or feature. 

3. Find a house that has been painted with a romantic use of 
color, and another that shows in its scheme of colors a realistic 
aim. Detail, in a paragraph of discussion, the reason for your 
judgments. 

4. Construct a visual sketch of a country scene in winter, with 
an expanse of snow, an evergreen tree standing alone in it, and 
with smoke rising in the distance from farmhouse chimneys. 

5. With the hint of this fancy study, effect a description of 
some actual country scene in winter, using colors mainly or con- 
trasts of color. 

6. Find examples, in current magazines, of description by 
means of color, and discuss the manner and effectiveness of each, 
and the degree. 

7. Study this passage descriptive of Rome, from the opening 
sentence of Garibaldi’s Defense of the Roman Republic, by G. M. 
Trevelyan, and give your impressions and judgment of its literary 
worth: 


92 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


Standing on the terrace in front of San Pietro, in 
Moratorio, look back across the Tiber at the city spread 
beneath our feet, in all its mellow tints of white, and red, 
and brown broken here and there by masses of dark green 
pine and cypress, and by shining cupolas raised to the 
sun. 


8. Recall some display of clouds in striking colors, piled 
massively overhead, and present the sublime or romantic spectacle 
by use of colors principally or only. 

g. Make a study of some landscape or rural scene, and by real- 
istic means work out a finished description. 

10. Describe, from cut in dictionary, the medieval wagon 
called pluteus. 

11. Analyze the colors in an Indian blanket, and determine how 
far the “types” discovered in them may be used to describe this 
object, and perhaps other objects connected with it, visually. 

12. Recall and present the appearance of some village, seen at 
distance, with a range of hills or mountains as background, and 
lighted by hues of nightfall or of early morning. 


CHAPTER X 
NARRATION 


E have seen that certain actions, called Visualizing, in- 

spire the mind to produce images of the persons sever- 
ally who perform them. We have now to learn what means 
will secure the pictorial realization of actions generally, in 
themselves, without regard to respective actors or results. 

Narration, as has been said, is in a measure progressive de- 
scription, To present the successive stages in an event or 
process involves description of altering or altered aspects. We 
can exhibit these, or some of these, as we have seen, by using 
our concepts of form and color. But, if narration is to be 
spirited and complete, we must do more than display results, 
step by step of action. We must show visually and progres- 
sively the acts themselves. 

Here are also expedients ready for our use. As all novel 
objects proposed for description can be analyzed into funda- 
mental lines or elements, familiar to everybody, so all acts or 
procedures needing to be narrated are resolvable into elemen- 
tary forms or “types” of movement. A type movement is a 
mode of motion that we have come to recognize as distinct 
and constant. The whirling of a windmill, the recoil of a 
spring, are “type” movements or concepts of this kind. By 
these familiar means, Nansen (Across Greenland 1. 325) 
makes us conceive the swift propulsion of the kayaks or seal- 
skin boats of the Esquimaux, by double-bladed paddles, and 
the discharge of spears at game, in a scene which he could 
hardly have presented, by words, in any other way: 


Now their paddles went like mill-sails as they darted 
among the floes, now they stopped to force their way or 
push the ice aside, or to look for a better passage. Now, 
again, an arm was raised to throw the spear, was drawn 
back behind the head, held a moment as the dart was 
poised, then shot out like a spring of steel as the missile 


flew from the throwing stick. 
93 


94 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


We note that other type ideas or concepts are brought into 
service here. Our forefathers long ago found out that the 
movement of an arrow made them think of nothing so much 
as of the action of swallows or other birds moving with swift- 
ness through the air. So when they needed to speak of like 
speed attained by other objects in the same element, they felt 
that they could not do better than borrow the idea of “fly,” 
“flight,” and apply these words as figures to the case in hand. 
Nansen does not describe the looks of a kayak in these sen- 
tences, but through the influence of “darted” we are led to 
create the image of one and make it behave after the manner 
of a dragon fly on the surface of water or of a fish under it. 
Also, to express the suddenness and force of the cast, the type 
notion of “shoot” is instinctively seized upon. 

For a study of action without hint of human or other spe- 
cific causation, we may compare various attempts to present the 
behavior of a geyser. The problem has often been attacked, 
but with success only as each visitor’s mind is able to resolve 
the marvel into right classifications of aspect and motion. One 
finds his figure in the action of a rocket as it leaves its cylinder. 
Another thinks of the first whiz of water bursting from the 
nozzle of a fire hose. A third uses the shooting of an oil well. 
But a master of his art classes the premonitions of an eruption 
as moaning, gurgling, and splashing. A spurt of boiling water 
jumps into the air, a wash of water follows from a funnel, 
the spout of which is torn and ragged like the mouth of a 
cannon where a shell has burst at discharging. Then the water 
rises again to lip level with a rush and an infernal bubbling 
till the heave of the wave laps across the ledge and drives away 
the man who has come up at the risk of a scalding to 
inspect. 

Here sense appeals of sound fitly precede the first sense ap- 
peals of sight. Then the concept movements in spurt, jumped, 
wash, enforce a definite notion of the discharge, to which 
nothing is wanting except some hint of size. One would have 
expected the master to supply this, when the concept of “fun- 
nel” is mentioned, in the next period. The picture is finished 
by the type notions of bubbling, heave, and lapped. 


NARRATION 95 


Maupassant throws on the screen this moving picture, mak- 
ing us see a stretch of romantic scenery in contrasted colors, 
and crowning all by the singular accuracy of his “figures,” 
or types of motion: 


The train had just left Genoa for Marseilles, and was 
rumbling along the rocky coast, gliding like an iron ser- 
pent between the bay and the mountain, creeping over the 
beaches of yellow sand, and disappearing suddenly into 
the black orifices that indicated tunnels, like an animal 
crawling into its burrow. 


Whatever querulous critics may have said of Chesterton’s 
work at large, his powers of analysis in narration and de- 
scription cannot easily be matched. The figures here, from 
the opening chapter of Manalive, show us vividly the antics 
of Innocent Smith, with little suggestion of either motives or 
personality : 


Another object came flying after the fluttering panama. 
It was a big green umbrella. After that came hurtling a 
huge yellow Gladstone bag, and after that came a figure 
like a flying wheel of legs, as in the shield of the Isle of 
Man. But though for a flash it seemed to have five or six 
legs, it alighted upon two. It took the form of a large 
light-haired man in gay green holiday clothes. Before 
they could speculate, the cheering and hallooing hat- 
hunter was already half up the tree, swinging himself 
from fork to fork with his strong, bent, grasshopper-like 
legs, and still giving forth his gasping, mysterious com- 
ments. He might well be out of breath, for his whole pre- 
posterous raid had gone with one rush; he had bounded 
once the wall like a football, swept down the garden like 
a slide, and shot up the tree like a rocket. 


It is of course instinctive with everybody to lay hold thus 
upon concepts of motion as the chief means in narration. The 
difference between a Maupassant or a Kipling and the com- 
mon speaker or writer in the readiness and effectiveness of 
this instinct is one mainly of degree. The ordinary reporter or 
story-teller often makes shift to present events and incidents 
in purely literal terms. A bystander, for instance, relates that, 
after the alarm was sounded, and the office building was in 


96 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


flames, a clerk in the fourth story who had been shut off from 
the elevator was seen to drop from a window, with a rain 
coat buttoned about his neck, so that, supported somewhat in 
the fall, he received slight harm. This account will be visual 
because of horror and sympathy aroused by the fact, but not 
at all from the manner of treatment, rather indeed in spite of 
it. A higher instinct of communication would recognize in- 
stantly and precisely the principle in physics which saved the 
man, and use it as a “figure” or type idea to intensify the pic- 
ture. A Chesterton or Ruskin would say, in substance, “The 
cravenette, buttoned close about the neck of the man, bal- 
looned round him and played parachute to him as he fell.” 
But there seems no reason why any schooled narrator should 
not force his reader, by true literary art, to visualize this 
“item” vividly, and without more words or hesitation than 
were incident to the former telling. A more deliberate use of 
the concept is seen in the device provided for present-day avi- 
ators, and known as a parachute cloak. 

The instinct of type-analysis is stronger in the unliterary 
and untrained mind than we suspect. Now and then we note, 
in the every-day speech of people, expressions that rival in apt- 
ness and vividness the figures of our most gifted writers. A 
lady remarks that she has begun to “trombone” the books she 
tries to read, and must resort to glasses. A carpenter, laid 
off with his arm in a sling, explains that he “guillotined’’ his 
wrist when a sash gave way. A policeman tells the magis- 
trate that he has been obliged to “snake” his man much of 
the way to the station. The tenth-grade schoolboy, injured 
when the elevator dropped, says of the speed, “We ‘meteored’ 
into the basement.” The difference between higher and lower 
instincts of type expression is seen rather in the readiness and 
frequency than the intensity of examples. There is no one 
of us who does not, upon occasion, dignify himself by “incar- 
nating the soul of a fact,” through a flash of deep seeing into 
its elements, with a figure. It would seem possible to do this 
oftener, through training,—that is, by diligent study of exam- 
ples, and constant analysis of things observed. 

In his best moods, Ruskin perhaps ranks first among mas- 
ters of narration, as of description, in English prose. Com- 


NARRATION 97 


pare his discussion of movements (Queen of the Air II, 68) 
in the locomotion of the serpent: 


That rivulet of smooth silver—how does it flow, think 
you? It literally rows upon the earth, with every scale 
for an oar; it bites the dust with the ridges of its body. 
Watch it when it moves slowly. A wave, but with no 
wind! A current, but with no fall! All the body moving 
at the same instant, yet some of it to one side, some to 
another, or some forward, and the rest of the coil back- 
wards. Startle it: the winding stream will became a 
twisted arrow; the wave of poisoned life will lash 
through the grass like a cast lance. 


This is not visual narration merely, it is a statement of fun- 
damental truths. It is visual because it is scientific and pre- 
cise. Ruskin’s literary eminence is the outcome of persistent 
studies in artistic discovery, not of practice in writing. We 
need to keep constantly in mind his dictum, “All art is seeing 
and saying.” We are perhaps not fully persuaded that saying 
cannot precede seeing, or make good in any degree its lack. 
We teach composition on a theory inconsistent with this truth. 
Literary genius works in wholly determinable and human 
ways. It is our business to help search out these ways, since 
they are presumably, like the discovered processes of genius in 
other arts, ultimate and practicable modes for the common 
mind. 


EXERCISES 


1. Identify the movements in the following paragraph, and 
apply to each, displacing “glided,” “carrying,” and “dragging,” its 
precise concept name. Also, substitute for “shone” the right type 
idea, and rewrite the whole, improving if possible the order of 
parts: 


On the pavement under the arc light glided a man, on 
a bicycle, carrying under his arm and dragging a big 
Christmas tree, its needles shining in the white light. 


2. From Kipling, or Chesterton, or Howells, quote and discuss 
examples of visual narration accomplished by concepts of motion. 


98 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


3. Study these paragraphs, find the concepts of form or move- 
ment that make them severally visual, and write your judgment of 
their comparative fitness and value: 


De Varenne came forward with the air and graces of 
an old beau, and, taking Madame Vorestier’s hand, im- 
printed a kiss upon her wrist. As he bent forward at the 
waist, his long gray hair spread like water on her bare 
arm. 


“Tshug?” “Tshug?” said Abou Salem, our Bedouin 
leader, moving his swinging arms up and down piston 
fashion to imitate the stride of a camel, then swept the 
sky from east to west in the course of the sun to ask 
whether we wished to travel from sunrise to sunset with- 
out halting the caravan. 


At a turn in the valley I suddenly caught sight of five 
telegraph lines so loaded down with swallows that they 
curved in the middle strangely, forming between pole and 
pole five garlands of birds. The driver cracked his whip, 
a cloud of swallows flew off and scattered against the sky. 
The weighted wires suddenly released, sprang up like the 
string of a bow. They continued in vibration thus for a 
long time. 


Around this dungeon stronghold, and above some part 
of it, licking the rough walls without, and smearing them 
with damp and slime within; stuffing dank -weeds and 
refuse into chinks and crevices; floating down narrow 
lanes, where carpenters, at work with plane and chisel in 
their shops, tossed the light shaving straight upon the 
water, where it lay like wood, or ebbed away in a tangled 
heap; sucking at the walls, and welling into the secret 
places of the town, crept the water always, noiseless and 
watchful; coiled round and round it, in its many folds, 
like an old serpent. 


4. Distinguish the motions of the dog and of the cat, in ordi- 
nary and at unusual speed, using concept names from the move- 
ments of the horse. Compose or narrate visually some incident in 
which these differences appear. 

5. Study the various movements of body observed in the gait 
of persons respectively whom you know, and find right class- 


NARRATION 99 


names to express them. In a paragraph of narration, utilize the 
type notions that you have seen in two instances of this kind. 

6. One of a group of boys examining a clothes-wringer, placed 
his finger between the rolls, while one of his companions turned 
the crank. Blood broke out from the end of his finger. 

Show whether this incident is visual because of the sense ap- 
peal, or the singularity of the incident, or the manner of narra- 
tion. Test the effect severally of various concept words that 
might be used instead of “broke,” in the last sentence, and substi- 
tute the one ensuring the strongest visual impression upon the 
general reader. 

7. Once, in a tool factory, a workman fell over against a 
rapidly revolving grindstone, and suffered serious hurt on the 
chin and shoulder. 

Find the right type word to describe the injury, and the right 
concept name to express the action causing it. Substitute the 
precise type idea for “revolving.” 

8. In any current magazine, report the best examples you can 
_ find of the principles considered in this chapter. 

9g. Write a critical appreciation of Kipling’s “Ship that Found 
Herself,” in The Day’s Work. 

10. Study the visual effectiveness in the following, and detail 
the elements of which you are conscious in the scene: 


“They play well, finely, to-night,’ said the old man, 
nodding and twinkling in his bright pleased way. “Kindly 
clap my hands for me, my Sister.” So the chef d’ orches- 
tra was gratified by the approval of the paralytic M. Du- 
noise, which indeed he would have been sorely chagrined 
to miss—Dehan: Between Two Thieves, p. 4. 


11. Exactly what does the paralytic M. Dunoise ask the Sister 
of Charity to do with his hands, flat and stiff as if made of ivory? 
What sense appeals are expressed, and what implied? By what 
means might the transaction suggested in the third sentence be 
made more visually and intensely realistic? 

12, What examples in this chapter are of a romantic, and what 
of a realistic character? 

13. From The Forest Lovers, or some other of Hewlett’s vol- 
umes, report three examples of concept elements, used incidentally 
in narration. 

14. Recall some peculiar event or happening, and find the con- 
cepts of form and movement that will make the unique scene 
visual. 


CHAPTER XI 
FORMS OF NARRATION 


HERE are various forms of Narration, some of which 

do not call for such elements or expedients as have just 
been studied. Concepts of movement belong to the highest 
modes of literary art. Other methods involve art in greater 
or less degree, but art of a very different kind. We may then 
profitably acquaint ourselves with some of the more usual as 
well as the more important modes of presenting meanings 
proper for narration. 

It is often unnecessary to exhibit visually all the incidents 
or parts of incidents that are to be narrated. Unimportant 
matters will be told unimaginatively, and left to take their 
chances with the reader. We instinctively save our skill and 
energy for portions more worth while. This is an example of 
the simpler sort: 


Papa and mama sold the brougham and the piano, and 
stripped the house, and curtailed the allowance of crock- 
ery for the daily meals, and took long counsel together 
over a bundle of letters bearing the Rocklington postmark. 


Here is an array of occurrences, covering many days or per- 
haps weeks, which is passed over in a summary. But any one 
of these proceedings might have been expanded, had there been 
need, into a paragraph of visual treatment. 

In writing of this sort, little of narrative art is possible, ex- 
cept the knack of selecting elements to form a proper thread 
of connection, and prepare the mind of the reader for vital 
things to follow. Sometimes we do not so much wish to nar- 
rate details as to indicate units of duration or sequence in de- 


tails that must be hurried over. Here is an illustration from 
Dickens: 


She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the 
arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and 
100 


FORMS OF NARRATION 101 


vanished. We took our seats at the round table, and my 
guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, while Star- 
top sat at the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the 
housekeeper had put on the table, and we had a joint of 
equally choice mutton afterwards, and then an equally 
choice bird. 


Here again there is only a bare outline of steps or happenings. 
It is not the purpose of the writer, or supposed speaker, to 
make us appreciate the feast socially or gastronomically, which 
is a usual motive for such mention, but rather to make us con- 
ceive its implied incidents and experiences as a whole. Where 
the unit, as in both of these examples, is not each of certain 
details, but the sum of all, and where there is no disposition 
to signalize any one of them, we have a simple and unvisual 
manner of narration which may be known as Summarizing. 

In narration proper, there is a natural sequence of stages or 
details which it is largely the business of the narrator to recog- 
nize. In this Summarizing form, the time sequence may be 
altered or ignored. In our first example, the piano may well 
have been sold before the brougham, and the curtailing of the 
crockery begun before a purchaser could be found for either, 
and the counselling over letters may have been the first of all. 
The different steps do not grow out of each other, and do not 
suffer from being reported out of their natural succession. But 
in examples like the passage from Dickens, there is an absolute 
order of progression, which must be respected in any sum- 
mary of events or acts. 

A somewhat higher method of narration will single out or 
emphasize certain details or steps from a whole series, and 
will make each of these pictorially, and perhaps sensationally, a 
unit of attention. Incongruous elements and sense appeals 
will be used to engage imagination. No larger or finer art is 
likely in general to be employed than was illustrated in our 
first two chapters. This manner of dealing with events and 
incidents is wholly correspondent to Descriptive Telling, and 
may be distinguished as Elementary Narration. 

This form has been presented in substance already, as will 
have been recognized, in Chapter IV. But it involves gener- 
ally and typically greater extension and more details than were 


102 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


there exhibited. Stevenson’s Black Arrow and Treasure 
Island, so far as narrative, are made up in the main of para- 
graphs ranking no higher than the examples cited. Each of 
these works is composed with consummate care, and illustrates 
how Elementary Narration may be kept at the level of litera- 
ture proper. This form is used most often in gossip, “yarns,” 
common letter writing, and in fiction of the Beadle dime- 
novel class, all of which deal typically with things and hap- 
penings that visualize themselves. Just as one’s appreciation 
of music begins with melody and advances to counterpoint, so 
one’s approach to literature, from Mother Goose upward, pro- 
ceeds by notions that in themselves force pictures upon stolid 
or unfledged imaginations. Stories of epic or unusual adven- 
ture, from Homer to present times, including typically the 
Chansons de Geste, Morte d’Arthur, Nibelungenlied, Gulliver's 
Travels, Robinson Crusoe, The Scottish Chiefs, Masterman 
Ready, With Fire and Sword, as also all similar works that 
appeal to fancy by fact and not by form, lie at this elemental 
level. Here belong conspicuously reports of scenes, told with 
plain and awful literalness, from the World War. 

For fresh and more adequate illustration of Elementary 
Narration, we shall disregard the claims of periodicals like the 
lineal descendants of The New York Weekly and The Fire- 
side Companion,—too much in evidence about us, with their 
variedly monotonous tales of lariat and gun, and turn to more 
veritable studies of life and people. We choose a passage from 
Bjornson’s Arne. Note how the author makes us see the ap- 
proach and passing of the roysterers through the eyes of the 
son and his father as our proxies: 


“Not here, over there,” cried the father, and the boy 
stepped behind an alder copse. Already the carts were 
winding round the birch grove. They came at a wild 
speed, the horses white with foam, drunken people crying 
and shouting. Father and son counted cart after cart,— 
there were in all fourteen. In the first sat two fiddlers, 
and the wedding march sounded merrily through the clear 
air,—a boy stood behind and drove. Afterwards came 
the crowned bride, who sat on a high seat and glittered 
in the sunshine. She smiled, and her mouth drooped on 
one side. Beside her sat a man clad in blue and with a 


FORMS OF NARRATION 103 


mild face. The bridal train followed, the men sat on the 
women’s laps. Small boys were sitting behind, drunken 
men were driving,—there were six people to one horse. 
The man who presided at the feast came in the last cart, 
holding a keg of brandy on his lap. They passed by sing- 
ing and screaming, and drove recklessly down the hill. 
The fiddling, the voices, the rattling of the wheels, lingered 
behind them in the dust. The breeze bore up single 
shrieks, soon only a dull rumbling, and then nothing. 


Here the one concept element of “winding” has palpable 
effect upon imagination. The rest of the narrative is strongly 
pictorial because mainly of general and particular incongrui- 
ties, of sense appeals, and contrasts,—horses, harnessed to 
carts, galloping wildly, fiddlers playing or trying to play in 
spite of the jerking motion, a boy standing up behind and driv- 
ing, the bride wearing a glittering crown in the flying dis- 
order, the feast-master holding his arms hard over a keg of 
_ brandy, and shrieks and screams mingled with the singing. 
The narration pictures itself and without skill on the part of 
the author, save in the selection and adjustment of efficient 
parts. 

There is always a visual center, or focus of attention, as 
we remember, in a descriptive study. There is generally a 
similar point, where the interest centers or should center, in a 
subject for narration. When there seems to be no such self- 
designated point or focus, the writer should establish one, and 
try to make the spirit of the whole inhere in it. The author 
in this case makes it the bridal cart. The spectacle begins with 
galloping horses, as they wind about a birch grove before com- 
ing abreast of those in hiding. This enables the writer to 
have the number of the carts counted over for us in advance. 
After the musicians pass, the bride and groom appear, fol- 
lowed by the bridal train. The procession ends, and only 
noises linger. But the sight of the bride, seated higher than 
her guests, and made still more conspicuous by a glittering 
crown, stands fast in imagination, and holds the other ele- 
ments in fixed relations with it. : 

One sees from this example that narration is often essen- 
tially panoramic. All parts of the spectacle are in existence, 
and exhibiting their respective aspects of movement at the same 


104 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


instant, yet cannot be presented except one unit at a time. 
There is in reality no time sequence of these units, though we 
seem, by the manner of our coming into acquaintance with 
them, to set up one. Yet what is told us is indubitably narra- 
tion, since the line of carts enters and departs from a given 
standpoint, and the noise of shouting comes in advance of the 
wedding party and lingers after they have disappeared. 

There is evidently a form of narration that will aim to pre- 
serve time sequence, while supplying all details of the history 
in hand. Witnesses in court are often ordered to omit no par- 
ticulars whatsoever, and to report all in the order in which 
they were observed. Like completeness of observation and 
testimony is continually called for in outside life. Narration 
wholly similar is now and then met with in books. A writer, 
indulging in day dreams or memories, and having no goal in 
sight, will often run to surprising lengths before he finds a 
motive to change his vein. The things he has seen or imag- 
ined may be too trivial for ordinary mention, yet may be ex- 
alted, through the mood which they inspire, towards the plane 
of literary worth. They may prove visual by virtue of swift 
contrasts, of sense appeals, or of realistic human interest. The 
illustration following is condensed from Hawthorne’s “Toll- 
Gatherer’s Day,” in Twice Told Tales: 


Methinks, for a person whose instinct bids him rather 
to pore over the current of life than to plunge into its 
tumultuous waves, no undesirable retreat were a toll-house 
beside some thronged thoroughfare of the land. So, at 
least, have I often fancied, while lounging on a bench at 
the door of a small square edifice, which stands between 
shore and shore in the midst of a long bridge. Beneath 
the timbers ebbs and flows an arm of the sea; while above, 
like the lifeblood through a great artery, the travel of the 
north and east is continually throbbing. Sitting on the 
aforesaid bench I amuse myself with a conception, illus- 
trated by numerous pencil sketches in the air, of the toll- 
gatherer’s day. 

In the morning—dim gray, dewy summer’s morn—the 
distant roll of ponderous wheels begins to mingle with my 
old friend’s slumbers, creaking more and more harshly 
through the midst of his dream, and gradually replacing 
it with realities. Hardly conscious of the change from 


FORMS OF NARRATION 


sleep to wakefulness, he finds himself partly clad and 
throwing wide the toll-gates for the passage of a fragrant 
load of hay. The timbers groan beneath the slow-revolv- 
ing wheels; one sturdy yeoman stalks beside the oxen, 
and, peering from the summit of the hay, by the glimmer 
of the half-extinguished lantern over the toll-house, is 
seen the drowsy visage of his comrade, who has enjoyed 
a nap some ten miles long. The toll is paid—creak, creak, 
again go the wheels, and the huge haymow vanishes in the 
morning mist. As yet, nature is but half awake, and fa- 
miliar objects appear visionary. But yonder, dashing 
from shore to shore with a rattling thunder of the wheels 
and a confused clatter of hoofs, comes the never-tiring 
mail, which has hurried onward at the same headlong, 
restless rate, all through the quiet night. The bridge re- 
sounds in one continued peal as the coach rolls on with- 
out a pause, merely affording the toll-gatherer a glimpse 
of the sleepy passengers, who now bestir their torpid limbs 
and snuff a cordial in the briny air. 

Now the sun smiles upon the landscape, and earth 
smiles back again upon the sky. Frequent, now, are the 
travellers. Here, in a substantial family chaise, come a 
gentleman and his wife, with their rosy-cheeked little 
girl sitting gladsomely between them. The bottom of the 
chaise is heaped with multifarious band-boxes, and car- 
pet-bags, and beneath the axle swings a leathern trunk, 
dusty with yesterday’s journey. Next appears a four- 
wheeled carryall, peopled with a round half dozen of pretty 
girls, all drawn by a single horse, and driven by a single 
gentleman. Luckless wight, doomed through a whole 
summer’s day, to be the butt of mirth and mischief among 
the frolicsome maidens. Bolt upright in a sulky rides a 
thin, sour-visaged man, who, as he pays his toll, hands 
the toll-gatherer a printed card to stick upon the wall. 
The vinegar-faced traveller proves to be a manufacturer 
of pickles. Now paces slowly from timber to timber a 
horseman clad in black, with a meditative brow, as of one 
who, whithersoever his steed might bear him, would still 
journey through a mist of brooding thought. He is a 
country preacher, going to labor at a protracted meeting. 
The next object passing townward is a butcher’s cart, 
canopied with its arch of snow-white cotton. Behind 
comes a “sauceman,” driving a wagon full of new pota- 
toes, green ears of corn, beets, carrots, turnips, and sum- 
mer squashes; and next, two wrinkled, withered, witch- 
looking old gossips, in an antediluvian chaise, drawn by a 
horse of former generations, and going to peddle out a 


105 


106 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


lot of huckleberries. See there, a man trundling a wheel- 
barrow load of lobsters. And now a milk cart rattles 
briskly onward, covered with green canvas, and convey- 
ing the contributions of a whole herd of cows in large 
tin canisters. 

Now comes the noontide hour—of all the hours nearest 
akin to midnight; for each has its own calmness and re- 
pose. Soon, however, the world begins to turn again 
upon its axis, and it seems the busiest epoch of the day; 
when an accident impedes the march of sublunary things. 
The draw being lifted to permit the passage of a schooner, 
laden with wood from the eastern forests, she sticks im- 
movably, right athward the bridge! Meanwhile, on both 
sides of the chasm, a throng of impatient travellers fret 
and fume. Here are two sailors in a gig, with the top 
thrown back, both puffing cigars, and swearing all sorts 
of forecastle oaths. Here is a tin pedlar, whose glitter- 
ing ware bedazzles all beholders, like a travelling meteor 
or opposition sun. Here comes a party of ladies on horse- 
back, in green riding habits, and gentleman attendant; 
and there a flock of sheep for the market, pattering over 
the bridge with a multitudinous clatter of their little 
hoofs. On this side, heralded by a blast of clarions and 
bugles, appears a train of wagons, conveying all the wild 
beasts of a caravan; and on that, a company of summer 
soldiers, marching from village to village on a festival 
campaign, attended by the “Brass Band.” Now look at 
the scene, and it presents an emblem of the mysterious 
confusion, the apparently unsolvable riddle, in which indi- 
viduals, or the great world itself, seem often to be in- 
volved. What miracle shall set all things right again? 

But see! the schooner has thrust her bulky carcass 
through the chasm; the draw descends; horse and foot 
pass onward, and leave the bridge free from end to end. 
“And thus,” muses the toll-gatherer, “have I found it with 
all stoppages, even though the universe seemed to be at a 
stand.” The sage old man! 


It would seem that any one of us might have written, given 
the mood, and the courage, a narrative like this. The para- 
graphs are surely interesting as suggestive of days in boyhood 
and perhaps later years when Hawthorne must have watched 
like processions of people pass the toll-house on the draw- 
bridge connecting his native Salem with the town of Beverly 
on the north. This author seems especially fond of account- 


FORMS OF NARRATION 107 


ing for all the moments of a transaction and realizing all its 
details consecutively. With the present sketch we might com- 
pare the better example of “David Swan,” in the same vol- 
ume. For an illustration more precisely temporal, we will add 
the following from Tolstdy’s Sebastopol (Wiener’s version) 
(XTIL):: 


When Mikhaylov saw the bomb, he dropped to the 
ground, and during the two seconds while the bomb lay 
unexploded, he, like Praskukhin, thought and felt in- 
finitely much. He prayed silently to God, and kept re- 
peating, “Thy will be done! Why did I enter into mili- 
tary service?’ Then he thought: “There I have gone 
over to the infantry, in order to take part in the cam- 
paign. Should I not have done better if I had stayed 
with the regiment of Uhlans in the city, and spent my 
time with my friend Natasha? And this is what I have 
instead !”’ And he began to count, “One, two, three, four,” 
imagining that if the bomb burst at an even number, he 
would live, but if at an uneven number, he would be 
killed. Everything is ended, I am killed,’ he thought, 
when the bomb exploded—he forgot to note whether it 
went off on an even or an uneven number—and he felt 
a blow and a severe pain in his head. “O God, forgive 
my sins,” he cried, swinging his arms. Then he got up, 
then fell down unconscious on his back. 


We may reasonably call this manner Consecutive or De- 
tailed Narration. It supplies as completely as possible all 
constituent elements or movements, and in their actual order. 
But, aside from dealing with tense moments, and situations in 
which each instant is as important as any other, the mind of 
the narrator will work selectively. There will be a succession 
of somewhat isolated acts or steps, which the imagination of 
the reader may be expected to piece together. Literature, 
speaking generally, cannot be more fully vitascopic in narra- 
tion than photographic in description. A writer, like a painter 
of portraits, must often overshadow or leave out such elements 
as would militate against the essential purport of his work. 

We have observed already that narration is in a sense pro- 
gressive description. It will use the vitagraph less often than 
the stereopticon. Fundamentally, it must furnish a series of 


108 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


descriptive views, and so select and co-ordinate that each shall 
spread its visual effect over omitted parts. The following, 
from the story, by a wireless operator of the Titanic, of his 
rescue, will illustrate this snapshot manner of narration: 


I felt, after a little while, like sinking. I was very 
cold. I saw a boat of some kind near me and put all my 
strength into an effort to swim to it. I was all done when 
a hand reached out from the boat and pulled me aboard. 

There was just room for me to roll on the edge, I lay 
there, not caring what happened. Somebody sat on my 
legs. They were wedged in between slats and were being 
wrenched. I had not the heart to ask the man to move. 
It was a terrible sight all around—men swimming and 
sinking. 

I lay where I was, letting the man wrench my feet out 
of shape. Others came near. Nobody gave them a hand. 
The bottom-up boat already had more men than it would 
hold and it was sinking. 

At first the larger waves splashed over my clothing. 
They then began to splash over my head, and I had to 
breathe when I could. 

As we floated around on our capsized boat, and I kept 
straining my eyes for a ship’s light, somebody said, “Don’t 
the rest of you think we ought to pray?” The man who 
made the suggestion asked what the religion of the others 
was. Each man called out his religion. One was a Catho- 
lic, one a Methodist, one a Presbyterian. 

It was decided the most appropriate prayer for all was 
the Lord’s Prayer. We spoke it over in chorus with the 
man who first suggested that we pray as the leader. 

Some splendid people saved us. They had a right- 
side-up boat, and it was full to its capacity. Yet they 
came to us and loaded us all into it. I saw some lights 
off in the distance and knew that a steamer was coming 
to our aid, 

I didn’t care what happened. I just lay and gasped 
when I could and felt the pain in my feet. At last the 
Carpathia was alongside, and the people were being taken 
up a rope ladder. Our boat drew near and one by one 
the men were taken off of it. 

I tried the rope ladder. My feet pained terribly, but I 
got to the top and felt hands reaching out to me. The 
next I knew a woman was leaning over me in a cabin, 
and I felt her hand waving back my hair and rubbing 
my face. 


FORMS OF NARRATION 109 


I felt somebody at my feet. Somebody got me under 
the arms. Then I was hustled down below to the hos- 
pital. That was early in the day, I guess. I lay in the 
hospital until near night, and they told me the Carpathia’s 
wireless man was getting “queer,” and would I help. 

After that I was never out of the wireless room, so I 
don’t know what happened among the passengers. I just 
worked wireless. The splutter never died down. I knew 
it soothed the hurt and felt like a tie to the world of 
friends and home.—New York Times, of April 28, 1912. 


This part of the wireless operator’s story covers the time, 
approximately, from 1 A.M. Monday morning (April 15, 1912) 
till the afternoon of the following Thursday, when the Car- 
pathia steamed into New York harbor. The difference be- 
tween the form of narration here used and the preceding Con- 
secutive or Detailed manner, is not difficult to characterize. 
The units now are not serial occurrences as such, but happen- 
ings that stand out in the memory of the narrator. Only a 
few experiences from that awful night are told, but we do not 
need or wish to have them multiplied. The momentum of 
imaginative realization carries the effect, with these sporadic 
parts, of a rounded and satisfying whole. The paragraphs 
also have taken shape under control from the same spirit of 
compression. From lack of a better designation, we may call 
this manner of narration, Selective or Suppressive. The 
thrilling experiences of aviators and shock troops who have 
gone “over the top” have furnished innumerable illustrations 
of this succinct and stimulating mode. 


EXERCISES 


1. In such narration as you chance to overhear, note illustra- 
tions of the Summarizing form, and report in writing examples, 
as nearly as possible, in the language and manner of the moment. 

2. Find, in some magazine short story or other fiction, a good 
specimen of the same mode of narration, and show the propriety 
of its use. 

3. Recall some oral report of your own in which the Elemen- 
tary form of narration was used, and reproduce, as nearly as you 
can, the sentences employed. Recast and improve, making as good 
an illustration of this mode as possible. 


110 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


4. Find, in current or other literature, an extended example of 
Elementary narration. 

5. From some one of your text books of history, report and 
discuss two examples of the Summarizing manner. 

6. Describe, by concepts of form, the Buddhist structure called 
tope, as shown under this entry in the New International Dic- 
tionary. 

7. Show, by concepts of movement, the action of an oarsman 
using the appointments of a racing shell. 

8. Find incidents in some book of adventure, as the Swiss Fam- 
ily Robinson, that are treated in details that might well have been 
condensed according to the Summarizing form, and recast suc- 
cinctly. 

g. Find or recall an example of Summarizing narration that 
seems to you worthy of being told in the Consecutive manner, and 
give reasons for your criticism. 

10. Describe, from cut in the Standard Dictionary, the form of 
a zarf. 

11. From some novel or short story of standard quality quote 
an example of narration that seems to be cast, after the Selective 
manner, in a series of visual situations. 

12, Recall some transaction or happening that appears to shape 
itself in memory, according to the Selective form, in an array of 
vivid pictures. 

13. Examine the columns of telegraphic news in the morning 
paper, and report the forms of narration used. 

14. Open at the beginning of some chapter in Macaulay’s His- 
tory of England, and write an appreciation, in respect to kind and 
quality, of the narration and description that you find. 

15. Compare, from reports by survivors of experiences under- 
gone in the Great War, examples of the four forms of narration 
considered in this chapter. 


CHAPTER XII 
FORMS OF NARRATION (CONTINUED) 


ERE we to inspect comparatively the examples consid- 

ered in the last chapter, we should discover that they 
are severally related, after the manner of parts to a whole, to 
some larger unit or purpose of narration. 

The passage from Bjornson tells of something that was wit- 
nessed after a Norwegian wedding. The extract from Dick- 
ens gives certain observations of Pip concerning a dinner 
served in the rooms of his guardian. The first quotation in the 
chapter sums up attempts at economy in an English house- 
hold. The paragraph from Tolstoy details the experiences of 
an officer in the field who waits for the explosion of a bomb. 
“The Toll-Gatherer’s Day” assists Hawthorne’s fancy of a 
miracle by which “life could be made to roll its variegated 
length” before the eyes of one privileged to watch it without 
being carried along with it. The last citation is taken from 
the testimony of a survivor concerning the sinking of the 
Titanic. Each iljustration is a part that waits upon some 
other part or parts to make its significance complete. 

There are thus larger or higher aspects of our subject that 
must be considered. The prime object of narration is to pre- 
sent an event, or some unitary episode of an event, for its own 
sake, or, to speak more simply, to tell a story. A story, as we 
have known from childhood, is a rounded narrative,—one 
which starts, with some promise of interest, at an organic 
point, and ends in a way that justifies the telling and crowns 
the whole with a logical and releasing outcome. The drama 
and the novel are developed and established forms of story- 
telling, having typically in each instance a determinate middle, 
as well as a beginning, and an end. The mode called history 
is a more extended and formal species of narration, and pre- 
serves the original idea and spelling of “story” almost unal- 


tered. A biography is history restricted to the life or career 
111 


112 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


of a single person. History and biography, together with the 
novel and the drama, are literary and standardized species of 
narration, and tend severally to formalize the beginning and 
the end of the narrative in hand. 

Literature in recent years has appropriated the simplest 
form as well as manner of narration in the variety known as 
the Short Story. This, which is often a condensation of the 
novel proper, retains the strongly marked and artistic ending 
of its original, but in general shows no hint of a “‘middle” or 
central point of construction, or of a formal opening. A still 
more attenuated form of narration is the Episode, which is a 
separable and sometimes an integral portion of a history or 
biography or other extended narrative. The following, from 
one of Flaubert’s chapters (XIII), in Salammbo, on the siege 
of Carthage, is a good example: 


Since the ladders proved insufficient, the enemy brought 
forward the Tellenones,—instruments composed of one 
long beam attached transversely to another, this second 
beam supporting at the end a square basket, in which 
cabs foot-soldiers could be held and protected. from 

elow. 

Men bent to the task of turning a small wheel. The 
great beam was lifted, became horizontal, then rose to 
an almost vertical position, where, being weighed down 
too heavily at the end, it swayed like an immense reed. 
The soldiers, concealed to their chins, crowded together; 
only the plumes waving above their heads could be seen. 
At length, when the basket had been lifted fifty cubits, it 
swung from right to left several times, then descended; 
and like the arm of a giant holding on its hand a cohort 
of pygmies, it set down on the edge of the wall the basket 
filled with men. These leaped out upon the crowd of de- 
fenders, but did not reappear. 


It will be noted that this episode is provided, in accounting 
for itself, with a proper beginning, closes ideally, and cannot 
be said to lack the typical middle, by Aristotle’s scheme, of 
dramatic construction. We note also that here concepts of 
movement, as well as incongruent elements and sense appeals, 
appear again. Most of the story telling in the world has to 
do with the conduct of people, that is, with the operation of 


FORMS OF NARRATION 113 


personal and social forces rather than with the forces of na- 
ture. Narration will in general take the form of showing what 
actions are performed, or what results from such actions,— 
how some one behaves, or what comes from the behavior, or 
more generally still, how a cause works, or what the cause 
accomplishes. The mind of the narrator inclines to the one 
or the other point of view, and is not apt to cross the han- 
dling. 

We reach here a distinction of treatment and mental atti- 
tude which corresponds to the Romantic and the Realistic man- 
ner (pp. 88, 89) of Description. In illustration of Romantic 
narration, we will compare a further and more extended epi- 
sode, from Victor Hugo’s observations (Les Miserables I, 
Book i. vii, ix) on the battle of Waterloo: 


The Emperor drew himself up and deliberated. 

Wellington had retreated. Nothing remained but to 
complete this retreat by an overthrow. 

Napoleon hurriedly turned and dispatched a courier at 
full speed to Paris, to announce that the battle was won. 

Napoleon was one of those geniuses with whom thunder 
originates. He had just found his thunderbolt. 

He gave Milhaud’s cuirassiers orders to take the pla- 
teau of Mont-Saint-Jean. 

All this cavalry, with sabres raised, standards flying, 
trumpets sounding, and formed in columns by divisions, 
descended with one movement and as one man, with the 
precision of a bronze battering ram opening a breach, 
the hill of La Belle Alliance, entered the dreadful valley 
in which so many men had already fallen, disappeared in 
the smoke, then, emerging from this darkness, reappeared 
on the other side, still in close formation, mounting at a 
full trot against a curtain of grape shot, the frightfully 
muddy slope of the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean. They 
ascended it, grave, threatening, imperturbable. In the 
intervals between the discharges of musketry and artil- 
lery, their colossal tramp was heard. Advancing in two 
divisions, they formed two columns. Wathier’s division 
was on the right, Delord’s on the left. It seemed as if 
two immense steel snakes were crawling towards the 
crest of the plateau. They moved across the scene of bat- 
tle like a prodigy, a portent. 

Nothing like this spectacle had been seen since the 
capture of the great redoubt of the Muskowa by the heavy 


114 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


cavalry. It seemed as if this mass of horses and men had 
become a monster, and was actuated by but a single soul. 
Each squadron undulated and swelled like the rings of a 
polypus. They were descried across a vast cloud of smoke 
rent here and there asunder. A confused commingling of 
helmets, yells, sabres, a stormy leaping of horses among 
cannon and blaring trumpets,—a tumult ordered but ter- 
rible; and above all, the cuirasses flashing like the scales 
of the dragon. 

No such narrative as this seems to belong to the present 
age. Something like the present spectacle was doubtless 
told of in the old Orphic epics celebrating the deeds of the 
centaurs, those ancient hippanthropot,—those Titans with 
the face of a man and the chest of a horse, who scaled 
Olympus at a gallop,—horrible, invulnerable, sublime; 
gods and brutes blended in one nature. 


This is clearly an example of the Consecutive or Detailed 
manner. It no less clearly shows the behavior of causal forces, 
like the brandishing of a weapon about to smite its victim, and 
it is told in a romantic vein. Romanticism will often consist 
as much in the enthusiasm of a writer as in the inspiriting na- 
ture of his theme. The most epical of subjects may be treated 
in an impersonal way, while realistic concerns may be dealt 
with in a romantic spirit. Some minds are subjective in their 
every attitude and act. Whatever has their interest is invested 
with values not inherent in the things themselves, but sup- 
plied from the transfigurations wrought by their own fancy. 
On the other hand, there are minds so poised and sage as to 
be incapable of extravagance or even fervency. They seem to 
foreknow and discount all the experiences that the future holds. 
To such, life is full of artistic significance in even its humblest 
aspects, and needs no amending touch. The examples of the 
preceding chapter peculiarly illustrate the realistic theory and 
manner of authorship in narration. 

A cause is often hard to come by and formulate, while its 
effects are generally palpable and easy to detail. So the treat- 
ment of causal phenomena in nature is apt to be romantic and 
subjective, while the exhibition of their effects, objective and 
realistic. The moving picture cannot deal with the theory of 
earthquakes, or show how the strains, the wrench have been 
gathering head, against the fatal day, for generations. The 


FORMS OF NARRATION 115 


tornado is “happening” not less when it shrieks and hurtles 
through the air unseen than when it dips to earth and obliter- 
ates what it touches. The avalanche also is happening when 
it has but begun its awful sweep towards the village in the 
valley which it will overwhelm. The mind will often prefer to 
contemplate causative aspects of action, though vague and scant, 
rather than to present or discuss matter-of-fact particulars of 
an escape or tragedy. By piecing together causal manifesta- 
tions, it is often possible to make imagination conceive the vast- 
ness or violence of mentioned forces more adequately than by 
an inventory of their effects. Kuipling’s paragraph in Plain 
Tales (“False Dawn”) recounting terrifying features of the 
storm is a fair example of what romantic and causal narration 
may attempt. 

But each one of us has perhaps personally undergone more 
extraordinary experiences of this kind in dreams than can be 
instanced anywhere from books. The apparent sensation of 
falling, falling, falling through endless space, and what seems 
an eternity of duration, with the foregone certitude of dashing 
into an abyss that is never reached, involves an agony of expec- 
tation hardly to be matched from reality. Or we, it may be, 
seem moving about on our wonted rounds when a cloud of 
thick, rising heat assails us. The air burns, the ground on 
which we tread is like a pavement of red-hot ploughshares. We 
think of the sea, which is not distant. We flee to the shore, and 
force entry upon a ship. But presently the ocean begins to boil 
far and near, the air is saturated with steam which scalds our 
lungs and parboils our flesh. Out on the land we can see the 
internal fires burst out and envelop all the landscape in sheets 
of flame. Overhead the moon, for the scene seems changed 
now to night, has turned the color of an egg-yolk, the stars 
shine red and fiery, and seem to mock us in our desperation. 
Escape is indeed impossible. We face an unspeakable dissolu- 
tion—when we wake suddenly out of our nightmare of horrors 
“and find it all has been nothing but a dream.” 

- Of course the example from Kipling is not without sugges- 
tion of definite and enduring results from the cause considered. 
But in this case, the effect dreaded and expected is not the 
dread or expectation in itself, but the physical destruction that 


116 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


did not come. Nor is it the writer’s purpose to tell the story 
of an escape, but to present to imagination the sublime menace 
of a hurricane in the tropics. The feelings experienced by 
the company are incidental merely. We note that the author 
has run through almost the whole gamut of visual resources, 
in his attempt to signify the phenomena and violence of the 
storm. 

Correspondent to Description in (p. 88) the Realistic vein, 
is Realistic narration. We may well illustrate this coun- 
terpart of the romantic manner first by an exhibit of effects 
from such forces of nature as have just been brought home to 
us. These forces, though portentous in extreme degree, caused 
no casualties or devastation. In the new example, effects are 
in awful evidence, while the forces producing them are unsus- 
pected till the moment of calamity, and unseen in operation. 
The illustration following is taken from the report, by an Eng- 
lish merchant, of the earthquake at Lisbon in 1755: 


In the midst of our devotions the second great shock © 
came on, little less violent than the first, and completed the 
ruin of those buildings which had been already much shat- 
tered. The consternation now became so universal, that 
the shrieks and cries of Misericordia could be distinctly 
heard from the top of St. Catherine’s Hill, at a consider- 
able distance off, whither a vast number of people had 
likewise retreated;vat the same time we could hear the 
fall of the parish church there, whereby many persons 
were killed on the spot, and others mortally wounded. 
You may judge of the force of this shock, when I in- 
form you it was so violent that I could scarce keep on 
my knees, but it was attended with some circumstances 
still more dreadful than the former. On a sudden I 
heard a general outcry, “The sea is coming in, we shall 
all be lost.” Upon this}’turning my eyes towards the 
river, which in that place is near four miles broad, I could 
perceive it heaving and swelling in a most unaccountable 
manner, as no wind was stirring. In an instant there 
appeared, at some small distance, a large body of water, 
rising as it were like a mountain. It came on foaming 
and roaring and rushed towards the shore with such im- 
petuosity that we all immediately ran for our lives as fast 
as possible; many were actually swept away, and the rest 
were left standing above their waists in water at a good 
distance from the banks. For my own part, I had the 


FORMS OF NARRATION 117 


narrowest escape, and should certainly have been lost, had 
I not grasped a large beam that lay on the ground, till the 
water returned to its channel, which it did almost at the 
same instant, with equal rapidity. As there now appeared 
at least as much danger from the sea as the land, and I 
scarce knew whither to retire for shelter, I took a sudden 
resolution of returning back, with my clothes all dripping, 
to the area of St. Paul’s. Here I stood some time, and ob- 
served the ships tumbling and tossing about as in a violent 
storm; some had broken their cables and were carried to 
the other side of the Tagus; others were whirled round 
with incredible swiftness; several large boats were turned 
keel upwards; and all this without any wind, which 
seemed the more astonishing. It was at the time of which 
I am now speaking, that the fine new quay, built entirely 
of rough marble, at an immense expense, was entirely 
swallowed up, with all the people on it, who had fled 
thither for safety, and had reason to think themselves out 
of danger in such a place: at the same time a great num- 
ber of boats and small vessels, anchored near it, all like- 
wise full of people, who had retired thither for the same 
purpose, were all swallowed up, as in a whirlpool, and 
never more appeared. 


Here the mental attitude is in marked contrast with the one 
that governs in the paragraph from Kipling. It is now full 
and honest horror, awe, dismay. In the former instance, Kip- 
ling speaks as half in apathy, half in irony at the bravado of 
the storm. Here the appalled and broken spirit of the writer 
lays no claim to distinction for the escape, or for the part he 
played. The eighteenth-century dignity of his story stands in 
strong relief against the unconscious manner of the wireless 
operator, and of like modern narratives of greater power.? 
The office of style is to assist, not delay or obstruct, an au- 
thor’s purpose of communication. 

The effect of realistic treatment may be greatly enhanced 
when the subject is of a kind adapted to foster indignation or 
partiality in the writer, but is not permitted to inspire it. Sil- 
vio Pellico’s My Prisons is a recognized masterpiece of im- 
passive, almost impersonal narration. In the following epi- 
sode (V. 112), this author tells how Maroncelli, his prison 


1 See especially the letter, published in McClure’s for May, 1909, by a survivor 
of the earthquake at Messina. 


118 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


mate, suffered consequences from their long confinement in 
Spielburg dungeons: 


The helpless man was borne into a larger room. He 
made the request that I should follow him. “I might not 
survive,” he said, “the operation. In that case, I should 
at least rest in the arms of my friend.” 

He secured the concession that I should be with him. 

The Abbott Werba, our confessor, came to administer 
the sacrament to the unfortunate man. This religious act 
performed, we settled down to wait for the surgeons, who 
though expected had not arrived. Maroncelli began to 
sing a hymn. 

The surgeons at last came in. There were two, one of 
them the stated resident of the place, namely our barber. 
He had the right, in case operations were called for, to 
perform them without assistance, and he had in general 
showed no willingness to yield up the honor to another. 
The second surgeon was a young student from the college 
at Vienna, and already reputed possessor of considerable 
skill. Though commissioned by the governor to assist in 
the operation and direct it, he would have been pleased to 
perform it himself, but contented himself with watching 
the work of his companion. 

Maroncelli did not utter a sound. When he saw the 
amputated leg borne away, he gave it a look of pity, 
then, turning to the operating surgeon, said: “You have 
freed me from an enemy, and I have no means of repay- 
ment.” 

There was in a vase upon the window sill a rose. 

“T pray you,” said Maroncelli, “bring to me that rose.” 
I carried it to him. And he offered it to the gray-haired 
surgeon, saying to him, “I have nothing else to give you 
in token of my gratitude.” 

The old man took the rose, and burst into tears. 


This was in 1828. Anesthetics did not come into use in 
surgery till some twenty years after the incident here related. 
Many readers have expressed impatience because no spirit of 
rancor or recalcitration against a method of imprisonment that 
breeds gangrene in the limbs of victims breathes through the 
work. They fail to appreciate that the author employs this 
manner genuinely and forgivingly, and that “it was this sim- 
ple story of fortitude and resignation that made Europe shud- 
der and Austria tremble and finally procured the deliverance 


FORMS OF NARRATION 119 


of Italy.” The restraint and repose of My Prisons seem cop- 
ied from the supreme realism of the gospels, in which the re- 
spective authors fear to mar their my by the least sign of 
advocacy or apology. 

A further manner of narration, ids not the least important, 
should be included in the present comparison of forms. It 
deals with problems more complex than any hitherto consid- 
ered in these chapters. It is well illustrated in the following 
paragraphs, in which Dickens (Pictures from Italy: Rome) 
attempts to present the closing revels of the Carnival season, 
in that city, for the benefit of his untravelled English readers: 


As the bright hangings and dresses are all fading into 
one dull, heavy, uniform color in the decline of the day, 
-lights begin flashing, here and there: in the windows, on 
the house-tops, in the balconies, in the carriages, in the 
hands of the foot-passengers}; little by little: gradually: 
gradually: more and more: until the whole long street is 
one great glare and blaze of fire. Then, everybody ~pres- 
ent has but one engrossing object; that is, to extinguish 
other people’s candles, and to keep his own alight; and 
everybody, man, woman or child, gentleman or lady, 
prince or peasant, native or foreigner; yells and screams, 
and roars incessantly, as a taunt to the subdued, “Senza 
Moccolo, Senza Moccolo!” (“Without a light! Without 
a light!”) until nothing is heard but a gigantic» chorus 
of those two words, mingled with peals of laughter. 

The spectacle, at this time, is one of the most extraor- 
dinary that can be imagined. Carriages coming slowly by, 
with everybody standing on the seats or on the box, hold- 
ing up their lights at arms’ length, for greater safety; 
some in paper shades; some with a bunch of undefended _ 
little tapers, kindled altogether} some with blazing torches ;' 
some with feeble little candles; men on foot, creeping 
along, among the wheels,’ watching their opportunity, to 
make a spring at some particular light, and dash it out; 
other people climbing up into carriages, to get hold of 
them by main force;*others, chasing some unlucky wan- 
derer, round and round his own coach, to blow out the 
light he has begged or stolen somewhere, before he can 
ascend to his own company, and enable them to light their 
extinguished tapers; others, with their hats off, at a car- 
riage door,’ humbly beseeching some kind-hearted lady to 
oblige them with a light for a cigar, and when she is in 
the fulness of doubt whether to comply or no, blowing out 


120 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


the candle she is guarding so tenderly with her little hand; 
other people at the windows, fishing for candles with lines 
and hooks,’ or letting down long willow-wands with hand- 
kerchiefs at the end,’ and flapping them out, dexterously, 
when the bearer is at the height of his triumph; others, 
biding their time in corners; with immense extinguishers 
like halberds, and suddenly coming down upon glorious 
torches, ‘others, gathered round one coach, and sticking to 
it; others, raining oranges and nosegays at an obdurate 
little lantern, or regularly storming a pyramid of men, 
holding up one man among them, who Carries one feeble 
little wick above his head, with which he defies them all! 
Senza Moccolo! Senza’ Moccolo! Beautiful women, 
standing up in coaches, pointing in derision at extin- 
guished lights, and clapping their hands, as they pass on, 
crying, “Senza Moccolo! Senza Moccolo!”; low bal- 
conies’ full of lovely faces and gay dresses, struggling 
with assailants in the streets; some repressing them as they 
climb up, some bending down, some leaning over, some 
shrinking back—delicate arms and bosoms—graceful fig- 
ures—glowing lights, fluttering dresses, Senza Moccolo, 
Senza Moccolo, Senza Moc-co-lo-o-o-o!—when in the 
wildest enthusiasm of the cry, and fullest ecstasy of the 
sport, the Ave Maria rings from the church steeples, and 
the Carnival is over in an instant—put out like a taper, 
with a breath! 


Here evidently is a species of narration that permits no 
progress and expects no goal. The treatment can deal with 
nothing but shifting aspects of a complex and impracticable 
whole. The manner of handling is analogous to the method 
of the kodak amateur, who goes about in a vast kaleidoscopic 
scene, making snapshots at random of this and that surprising 
feature. For lack of a better designation, one might call this 
form Descriptive Narration. It is narration because the view 
at every point shifts from moment to moment. It is descrip- 
tive because there is no attempt to show the behavior of even 
a single person, or unit of observation, in a true series of move- 
ments or changes. It aims merely to present certain isolated 
and momentary phases of activity, such as one might select to 
sketch or paint. 

In this illustration we may again distinguish the effect man- 
ner from the causal manner of narration. The writer is here 
attempting to detail certain acts or pranks prompted by the 


FORMS OF NARRATION 121 


spirit of revelry. This disposition to celebrate extravagantly 
is not caused by a return of the Carnival season or its closing 
night, but has existed in the minds of the Roman populace for 
generations. Like manifestations under certain conditions ap- 
pear in all cities and communities, because sport and hilarity 
are inherent in human nature. The arrival of the season and 
the day merely furnishes the occasion for an outbreak. Here 
the ringing of the Ave alters conditions and withdraws war- 
rant for merry-making. A cause should be distinguished 
sharply from the occasion that permits its exercise. A spark 
dropped on a train of gunpowder is not the cause of the ex- 
plosion following, but its occasion. The cause exists unre- 
leased beforehand in the nature of the explosive. 
Fundamentally, the realist takes himself and other things, 
not as he fain would have them, but as he finds them. The 
romanticist takes himself and other things, not as he suspects 
they are, but as he would most enjoy having them become. 
Realism as a body of written products may be thought of as 
the literature of being rather than of doing, of the soul and 
life and nature in static states. Similarly, romanticism in 
books may be looked upon as the literature of the soul as will, 
of compelling might in man or nature, of life sublimated, 
etherealized, perfected. Weare apt to be romanticists in youth, 
when we seem to sit in seats of power, and success is sure. 
We are realists in later years, after we have suffered defeats 
and learned how far dreams come true. Many of us, indeed, 
are romanticists of mornings, when we lay plans for the day. 
We turn realists at nightfall, when we have found out how 
far it is possible to actualize our ideals, our aims, our hopes. 
We have perhaps noted that the manner of narration may 
change from paragraph to paragraph, according as the quality 
or intensity of incidents presented changes. The first part of 
a history, if it sum up antecedent events or periods, will prob- 
ably be cast in the Summarizing form. Its more vital chap- 
ters will be told in the Consecutive or the Selective mode, 
while its battles will be likely to take on the character of De- 
Scriptive narration. The epic or narrative poem, being in gen- 
eral more laconic and condensed than prose, should show such 
shifts of manner with great plainness. Lancelot and Elaine, 


122 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


for example, opens with a paragraph in the Elementary or 
sensational form, with the manifest purpose of engaging the 
reader’s imagination for the story. This is accomplished by 
the preposterous expedient of making the second title charac- 
ter stand guard over the shield of Lancelot, and contrive to be 
wakened by light reflected from it, at sunrise, upon her face: 


Elaine the fair, Elaine the loveable, 

Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat, 

High in her chamber up a tower to the east, 
Guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot; 

Which first she placed where morning’s earliest ray 
Might strike it and awake her with its gleam. 


The three stanzas following this are cast in the Summariz- 
ing form. After parts of the poem illustrate variously all the 
other modes. 

It seems evident, as we look back over the Forms of Narra- 
tion illustrated in these chapters, that the divisions recognized 
are in part determined in each case by the mood and purpose 
of the writer, and in part by the nature of the happenings with 
which he deals. It would seem that authors are mainly con- 
trolled by instinct in suiting Forms to the respective materials 
and the state of mind. Equally evident is it that the impulse 
of selection here, as in other arts, may be disciplined and en- 
lightened, and eventually governed, with large profit to the 
product. Other modes and forms of narration will doubtless 
come to the notice of the learner, in his study of literature 
and of his own work, and may well be discussed and formu- 
lated in special inquiries under the present head. 


EXERCISES 


1. Recall the details of some journey, lately finished, and sketch 
out divisions that should fall under different forms of narration. 
Choose out some exciting episode, and treat appropriately after 
the Romantic manner. 

2. Write, with careful attention to details, the paragraph or 
portion which you have purposed to present in the Realistic man- 
ner of narration. 

3. Compose now the part that you have judged should be dis- 
patched by use of the Summarizing form. 


FORMS OF NARRATION 123 


4. Supply next that division of the whole which it was de- 
cided should be cast in Consecutive or Detailed narration. 

5. Write the paragraphs that seem to call for the Elementary 
or Sensational manner. 

6. Compose the part designed for the Selective form. 

7. Paste together the divisions now completed, in their proper 
order in the narrative, read the whole aloud, and annotate with 
corrections and improvements. 

8. Putting this study aside, plan another similarly, and work 
out the whole connectedly, if possible at a single sitting, after the 
eventual manner in which you would expect to write. 

9. In Two Years before the Mast, or some similar example of 
extended narration, quote and discuss as many illustrations of the 
several modes as you can find. 

10. Recall some scene or experience proper for presentation by 
Descriptive narration, and select the parts or phases that might 
be used. 

11. In recent numbers of the standard magazines, find good in- 
stances of the Realistic, the Detailed, and the Selective manner. 

12. Describe the cowfish. 

13. Read Poe’s Descent into the Maelstrom, and discuss the 
forms and the visual effectiveness of the narration. 

14. Review in mind the narrative books you have read recently, 
and, selecting one, report from it any manner of narration that 
might be regarded as a distinct and further form. 

15. Read over the study prepared as Exercise 8, annotate and 
rewrite, making the whole as visual and natural as you can. 


CHAPTER TAIT 
LITERARY TECHNIC IN DESCRIPTION AND NARRATION 


EFORE we leave the subjects of narration and descrip- 

tion, certain further aspects of both should be considered. 

These aspects are in no sense vital, yet often greatly assist in 
establishing higher values for the products of literary art. 

It is possible to show the inner truth of an object more satis- 
fyingly than the object itself shows it. This is oftenest done 
by bringing in another something that shows the given truth 
more nakedly. Thus the successful portrait of a face discloses 
personality as the original cannot disclose it except to the art- 
ist’s eye. We have seen how description selects and adjusts 
outer parts so that the reader may construct and enjoy the in- 
trinsic whole. Neither the master of description nor the 
painter works with the hope or purpose of showing an object 
accurately or completely, but only for the sake of the spiritual 
presentation that can be made of it. Both appeal to us with 
lines and colors, or words representing them, while we sup- 
ply the spiritual effect from within ourselves by imagination. 

It is the province of art, speaking generally, to make unin- 
teresting things interesting, as well as interesting things more 
interesting. We have seen something of how the master of 
narration and description works, following the artist, in his 
larger tasks. In these, the personal manner of either, when it 
is peculiarly satisfying, is called his technic. But both artist 
and author may have pointed or daring ways of doing inci- 
dental and minor things, and by these occasion more than 
minor satisfaction to the observer. It is in touches of this 
kind that we find often the most pronounced marks of indi- 
viduality as well as the most distinguished proofs of. skill. 

So an author’s as an artist’s technic may be conveniently 
studied in his power of making incidental things seem better, 
by the telling, than the things can possibly seem seen in 


themselves. In literature, the means are the same, figures, 
124 


LITERARY TECHNIC 125 


as have been treated. But they are often more delicate, al- 
ways more realistic and intense. The impulse is now not so 
much to present form or movement as such, in kind, as to 
communicate the exquisite spiritual truthfulness of form or 
movement in degree. In this remarkable illustration, Kipling 
speaks (The Man Who Would Be King, p. 197) of a dash of 
rain near the end of the dry season in the tropics: 
; 

It was a pitchy black night, as stifling as a June night 
can be, and the loo, the red-hot wind from the westward, 
was booming among the tinder-dry trees and pretending 
the rain was on its heels. Now and again a spot of al- 
most boiling water would fall on the dust with the flop 


of a frog, but all our weary world knew that it was only 
a pretence. 


Here the suggestiveness climaxes in the first clause of the 
last sentence. The massed suddenness of descent, the flat spill- 
ing of the patch, the “spot” of rain on the hot dust, are so 
astonishingly comprised, as to bulk and manner, in the “flop” 
of the frog, that we are carried over by this identity into the 
experience of the moment, and seem to appropriate the au- 
thor’s discovery of it as our own. It is Kipling, of course, 
who, by his penetration, has gratified certain of our finer | 
senses, yet we feel that we have touched the plane of spiritual 
mastery with him. This passage from Tennyson furnishes a 
nobler example: 


... high above I heard them blast 
The steep slate quarry, and the great echo flap 
And buffet round the hills from bluff to bluff. 


What is told here is a merest incident, yet inspires perhaps 
more delight than the main part of the story. Those of us 
who have heard the detonations from rock-blasting among 
mountains cannot forget the unimaginable sweep and crash 
of the eehoes among the crags. They seem but vague, incom- 
prehensible wonders, until Tennyson presents them as in es- 
sence the wing-strokes of an enormous bird. 

The different forms of narration may be thus embellished 
here and there by the illumination that exquisite type appeals 


126 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


lend to the commonplace. Large happenings presented by 
large expedients may arouse our sense of the sublime to ro- 
mantic exercise. But the realistic touch, making lucid and 
living the simplest idyllic turn in act or scene, delights us by 
cumulation hardly less. We can thread our way contentedly 
through dull pages of fiction or travel by the lure of interpre- 
tative concepts such as the following, illustrating the narra- 
tive technic of various authors: 


She slipped like water to the floor. 
The burning tree-tops waved like torches in the air. 


The wave had slouched outside with a plop and a 
chuckle. 


“Pooh,” said he, sluicing his face, and speaking through 
the water. 


He hinged his hat upon his forehead to the lady through 
the full sweep of a semicircle. 


He blew rings of smoke, which sped horizontally, like 
phantom hoops, hurtling through the room. 


From the edge of earth and sky, ray after ray of violet- 
white fire made a swift stab at the stars. 


The flames, leaping suddenly by the opening below, 
were licking the walls, climbing towards him, about to en- 
circle him. 


And all that while the little Dimbula pitched and 
chopped, and swung and slewed, and lay down as though 
she were going to die, and got up as though she had been 
stung. 


When the locomotive moved out of the station, fishing 
rods were sticking out of every window of the train, 
which looked like a huge spiked caterpillar worming itself 
through the fields. 


The direct way to Fuller Place lay up the South 
Road,—a broad thoroughfare, through the center of which 
there used to trickle occasionally a tiny horse-drawn ve- 
hicle to and from the great city of B——. 


Down the lane they went, and dark enough it was. Mr. 
Pickwick brought out the lantern, once or twice, as they 


LITERARY TECHNIC 127 


groped their way along, and threw a very bright tunnel of 
light before them, about a foot in diameter. 


The horses must have been Spanish jennies, sired by 
the gale, for they went as fast as the wind; and the 
moon, which had risen to light us at our departure, rolled 
in the heavens like a wheel detached from its car. We 
saw it springing on our right from tree to tree, trying to 
keep up with us. 


Though the last example is impressionistic and fanciful, the 
concepts of movement are not incorrect. We have often in 
childhood and since, while riding along an avenue flanked by 
trees, seen the moon pursue us. If some one had asked us 
what its apparent behavior made us think of, we should un- 
doubtedly have said, A detached wheel rolling along the sky. 
As we have turned some sharp curve in our course, we have 
been more than half persuaded that the moon was indeed 
“springing’’ from tree to tree, with purpose not to be distanced 
by our speed. 

Numerous illustrations of descriptive technic might be intro- 
duced to similar effect. A few striking instances will suffice: 


The ends of the joists stuck out of the wall like decay- 
ing tooth-stumps.—Nexo: Pelle, Vol. IV, p. 4. 


Between the walls of a garden, with a tall and twisted 
trunk, a gigantic palm tree raised its head—like a spider 
fastened to the sky.—Pio Barojo: City of the Discreet, 
Dawsts 


Here and there little rocky hills, the last offshoots of the 
Aravalis to the west, break the grounds; but the bulk of 
it is fair and without pimples.—Kipling: From Sea to Sea, 
Vol. I, p. 136. 


A high four-post bed with faded curtains, worked with 
fleur-de-lis by some dead and gone Dexter, whose handi- 
work was to be seen in many an embroidery throughout 
the Castle, jutted like a peninsula into the middle of the 
room.—Pryce: Jezebel, p. 175. 


The wild tulip, at end of its tube blows out great red bell 
Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick 
and sell—Browning: Up at a Villa. 


128 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


This particular evening, if it is remembered for nothing 
else, will be remembered in that place for its strange sun- 
set. It looked like the end of the world. All the heaven 
seemed covered with a quite vivid and palpable plumage; 
you could only say that the sky was full of feathers, and 
of feathers that almost brushed the face. Across the great 
part of the dome they were gray, with the strangest tints 
of violet and mauve and an unnatural pink or pale green; 
but towards the west the whole grew past description, 
transparent and passionate, and the red-hot plumes of it 
covered up the sun like something too good to be seen, 
The whole was so close about the earth, as to express 
nothing but a violent secrecy. It expressed that splendid 
smallness which is the soul of local patriotism. The very 
sky seemed small—Chesterton: The Man Who Was 
Thursday, pp. 4, 5. 


We note here that clearness and takingness, in visual presen- 
tation, seem to approach each other. A visualizing action, as 
well as a visualizing pose, may or may not, according to the 
nature of vital elements, charm the reader. All the examples 
in this chapter, except the last, and in part the final illustra- 
tion of narrative technic, appear to have been inspired by the 
instinct of exact truthfulness, and not by the sense of beauty. 

The union of form concepts with concepts of motion will 
often greatly increase the visual effect. The vigor of this ex- 
ample, which might have been intensified by mention of the 
color, is due as much to shape as movement: 


He squeezed out a worm of paint on his palette. 


Chesterton successfully indicates the violence of the gale, 
treated at the opening of Manalive, by this union of motion 
and still life: 


The bright short grass lay all one way like -brushed 
hair. Every shrub in the garden tugged at its roots like 
a dog at the collar, and strained every leaping leaf after 
the hunting and exterminating element. 


The technic of modern literary diction is thus seen to be 
dependent largely upon acuteness and delicacy of perception. 
It is a something engendered in part of wit, and not less from 


LITERARY TECHNIC 129 


sensitiveness of spirit. Born in French salons of the early 
nineteenth century, it has slowly imparted its character to the 
literature of France and of Europe, and hence to ours. Bril- 
liant conversationalists still influence makers of literature by 
the ease with which they uncover and turn to account the il- 
luminating parallel. Maupassant, we may say, lived and wrote 
to show us how to compass concepts of form, Ruskin and 
Tolstoy, concepts of action. These men have shown us excel- 
lencies by which writing of this age is judged, and by which 
our taste for narrative and descriptive writing must be formed. 

Type conceptions such as these writers use do not come al- 
ways by inspiration. Tennyson waited sometimes for years 
to get sight of a vivifying analogy. Tolstoy rewrote one of 
his volumes more than a hundred times. Kipling spends whole 
days in search of true type names and phrases. Ideals like 
theirs fix the standards for the literature of the day. It is 
also their mission to raise the popular sense of literary values 
as near as possible to the level of their work. 


EXERCISES 


1. Examine and quote examples of narrative technic from the 
opening chapters of Howells’s Mrs. Farrell, and discuss. 

2. Write an appreciation of the narrative and descriptive tech- 
nic, with examples, in Hewlett’s Spanish Jade. 

3. Watch the figures and phrases ventured by clever conversa- 
tionalists, and report any that seem illustrative of values consid- 
ered in this chapter. 

4. Quote significant examples from Willa Cather’s Professor’s 
House. 

5. Compare the literary technic in the fiction of Katherine 
Mansfield and John Galsworthy. 

6. Read Motley’s chapter (Rise of the Duich Republic IV. ii) 
on the siege of Leyden, and discuss the propriety and effectiveness 
of the narrative in different parts. 

7. Judge whether the following passage is narrative chiefly, or 
descriptive, and supply the grounds for your conclusion. Try 
whether, from spirit and style and diction, you can identify the 
author, and volume quoted from. 


130 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have 
been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as 
matters stood it was a town of unnatural red and black 
like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of ma- 
chinery and tall chimneys, out .of which interminable ser- 
pents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and 
never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river 
that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of 
buildings full of windows where there was a rattling and 
a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam 
engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head 
of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness. It con- 
tained several large streets all very like one another, and 
many small streets still more like one another, inhabited 
by people equally like one another, who all went in and 
out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same 
pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day 
was the same as yesterday and to-morrow, and every year 
the counterpart of the last and the next. 


8. In contrast, examine for technic and manner The Research 
Magnificent, by H. G. Wells. Copy an array of locutions, and 
discuss their propriety and strength. 


CHAPTER XIV 
EXPOSITION 


| 6) Rue rcreanneaerD and Narration are important forms of 
communication, and, as we have seen, are also enjoy- 
able. But it is well to note that we do not describe or narrate 
for the sake merely of describing or narrating, nor should we 
or do we engage in either solely for the pleasure of it. Both 
are means by which we supply a sort of presence to others not 
with us when we see things that they also would have liked to 
witness, and are glad to hear about. They are glad to hear 
of the things we tell because they would otherwise have missed 
something that they think, or would have thought, worth while. 

But what makes things, in themselves, worth while to hear 
of or report? Objects and happenings, even when known of 
at first hand, are merely facts, and are not ultimately signifi- 
cant in themselves. “No fact is an adequate expression of its 
meaning asa fact.” It is at best only an illustration, an evince- 
ment of something beyond and greater than itself. The blaze 
that we watch in the grate is not merely a fact of flame, but 
also and even more an instance of the activity with which 
certain chemical elements seek a stronger union. The discov- 
ery of a new fact, like radium, is quickly merged in a new pro- 
cedure. We are at once prompted, by forces or instincts in 
our minds, to discount the fact as such, and set about inquir- 
ing what the fact stands for, or really is. 

So we describe and narrate, not so much for the purpose of 
communicating the looks or behavior of things, as of making 
our hearer or reader think as well as know. Fundamentally 
to think is to find out what a thing is by determining its class. 
More explicitly, to think is to answer some or all of the ques- 
tions, What? How? Why? Where? When? Whither? Acts or 
objects finally signify principles, laws, truths, which are greater 
than the facts illustrating them and which, their importance 


discovered, release the mind from further consideration of 
131 


132 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


them as facts solely. Newton, for instance, does not appear 
to have preserved the famous apple that brought to light the 
law of gravitation, or to have thought of it again. It is thus 
the principles, the inner values that make things we describe 
or narrate worth while to those who read or hear. The sort 
of discourse or communication that brings out the worth- 
whileness of what is seen or known is Exposition. 

There are kinds and degrees to be noted in this division of 
discourse. That which Newton used to unfold the law of 
gravitation is Scientific Exposition. The decision of a bench 
of judges, which brings to light an underlying principle of 
right or justice, is Legal Exposition. The form by which 
Aristotle and Bacon and Bergson set forth their doctrines is 
Philosophical Exposition. The means employed by a Wilson 
or a Coolidge to expound and justify national policy is Politi- 
cal Exposition. ‘The discussions by which Carlyle and Ar- 
nold and Emerson show what is worth while in life or books, 
is Literary Exposition, as understood by writers of handbooks 
on composition,—who indeed employ exposition to communi- 
cate the nature and value of exposition itself. 

Most of us first become acquainted consciously with exposi- 
tion through manuals of rhetoric and the requirement of 
“themes” in English studies. We probably have thought writ- 
ing of this kind difficult and unnatural. Perhaps not all of us 
have yet realized that tasks set for us in exposition are really 
of the sort which we engage in every day outside of school, 
and which we do not feel to be tasks at all. This unconscious 
and unrecognized exposition has been going on all about us 
and we have been sharing in it ever since we can remember. 
We perhaps recall how we first found ourselves as thinkers, 
when we compelled attention and respect in the family coun- 
cil over some question of household policy. Up to the age of 
ten or over, whenever we had ventured to speak to the ques- 
tion of the moment, we were silenced or ignored. But now in 
a discussion whether the plan of altering the house should be 
adhered to, or carpets should come back in place of rugs and 
polished floors, or the touring car be exchanged for a sedan, 
we suddenly find ourselves full of vision as to what were best 
to do. Whenever we are thus persuaded what should be a 


EXPOSITION 133 


course of action, or more precisely, convinced of the principles 
that should govern in a given matter, we should find it easy to 
phrase our meaning. And, in all such cases of thinking and 
expressing thought, we are typically engaged in the supposedly 
dreadful business of exposition, in spite of its high-sounding, 
scholastic name. As in narration and description, our tribu- 
lations lie essentially in the difficulty of seeing the precise na- 
ture of the thing in hand, and not greatly in the saying of what 
we see. 

What we have thus been doing well impromptu and uncon- 
sciously with the voice, we should do better consciously and 
reflectively with the pen. We are to realize that literary ex- 
position, or essay writing, is an ad libitum attempt to bring 
out why given things are worth while, and that we cannot ex- 
pound why given things are worth while except by way of 
instances in which involved qualities have been or may be 
shown. Also, we must proceed concretely and visually, just as 
in former chapters. If a wise teacher has seen me dismayed 
at the thought of making an “essay,” and likely to spend days 
or weeks in trying to find a “subject,” he should say, “I am 
not going to have you write ‘essays,’ your kind of essays, at 
all. Now listen, Mr. Smith: What is your notion of a perfect 
gentleman?” 

I am not, let us suppose, aware that I have ever had a no- 
tion of what a perfect gentleman should be. But I am confi- 
dent at once, now that the question is asked, that I do have 
one. But I am far from knowing definitely what that notion 
is. lI hesitate, of course, and the teacher, who has not ex- 
pected or intended anything else, will say, “You find you have 
a notion, do you not?’ And TI assent. “You could have told 
me all right, if I had given you a chance to think?” As I 
assent again, he says, “Then find out what that idea of yours 
really is, write it out and let me have it in the morning. No 
matter how short your answer is, do not add a single word to 
make it longer. And, by the way, all the others in the class, 
for to-morrow’s exercise, may do the same thing.” 

So we all begin in every-day style to think out what quali- 
ties lie back of the word, what makes us want to call any man 
a gentleman. We naturally go back to gentlemanly things that 


134 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


we have seen done, and of the persons who did them. One 
of us remembers seeing a well-groomed young man help a 
working woman loaded with bundles off a street car, and he 
names the quality. He thinks of a friend who was amused 
at an impudent newsboy, who tried to short-change him, and 
whom, rallied in kindliness and good fellowship, he left better 
motivated and better natured. The quality here noted is named 
and used. There is mention of a man seen to remove his hat 
in an insurance office where he is debating about some claim 
with a woman clerk not overcivil. There is brought in also 
a social figure who refused to listen, in a group at his club, 
to an item of gossip involving a common friend believed by 
himself to have been at fault. So this member of the class 
goes on recounting incidents that bring to light parts of his 
idea until he has signified in substance, both to his teacher 
and himself, what his conception of a gentleman, a finished 
gentleman, is. 

Outside of my own part in the case, I am beginning to be 
conscious that I carry about with me no end of other unreal- 
ized “notions” of like sort. I discover that I am continually 
appealing to them in my judgments of people, and that I am 
almost constantly developing them, much as I have just devel- 
oped my idea of a gentleman, to others and myself. I could no 
less readily have told, instead, and with no less confidence, 
what is my notion of an ideal lady, or friend, or doctor, or 
business man. 

Another effect of the work will be to blot out from the stu- 
dent’s landscape that no man’s land between books and life. 
The mystery of literature and of making literature seems to 
disappear. After a few weeks in the work, members of the 
class come up to the teacher and want to tell what has hap- 
pened. One and another will say, almost in unison, “I al- 
ways used to have the worst kind of a time trying to find 
something that I thought I could write about. Now, as I 
came from breakfast this morning, I thought of nine subjects 
that I want to write on just as soon as I can.” ‘This is not at 
all an imagined incident, nor indeed for that matter is any 
step or part of the illustration which this concludes. 

And yet another consummation may be looked for. The 


EXPOSITION 135 


pupil should not, will not, longer write insincerely. He will 
not offer merely what he thinks his teacher wants. More than 
all, he will not write below his intellectual level. Were is an 
exercise of the kind that pupils interested in exposition will 
no longer consider satisfying, at least in content: 


Have we realized that there is scarcely a home in the 
whole country that has not its pet or pets? If there is 
not a dog or a cat, there will be found a rabbit, or a 
squirrel, or a peacock, or a guinea pig, or possibly a pony, 
or a goat. If there is no stable in which to care for such 
enlargements of the domestic circle, there will be caged 
indoors perhaps a parrot, or a mocking-bird, or a canary, 
or white mice. Sometimes one hears of a tame fox, or 
bear, or eagle. Tennyson’s Princess, we remember, kept 
two lame leopards by her desk, as she wrote or lectured. 
We read of trained cobras, and other snakes exalted to 
the plane of pets. 

What instincts are there to be gratified with such means 
as these? In men it is the wish to father something that 
will help make a home. The confirmed bachelor is likely 
to have a great Dane, or Saint Bernard, or perhaps a hunt- 
ing dog, as his companion. In women, there is a desire 
to mother something, to help the helpless, to humanize 
and fondle even the unworthy. With children, there is 
the passion, coupled with curiosity, to enlarge the circle 
of playfellows. Authors also have had childish enthusi- 
asms. Sir Walter Scott romped with his hounds, and 
Petrarch made sonnets while he rubbed the fur of his 
favorite cat. 

The impressment of pets, which we see in our own 
country, is going on similarly all over the world. The 
whole animal creation seems waiting to be brought into 
domestic dependency upon man. In every species some 
useful quality is in time disclosed. The dog exhibits un- 
failing devotion to the master who maltreats him. Yet 
the dog is but a domesticated wolf or jackal. The horse, 
at first a most unpromising animal, has developed mar- 
velous loyalty and serviceableness. Cattle, sheep, and 
goats have been bred from originals valueless except as 
game. The elephant, dreaded and wondered at for many 
generations, has found his place as the most sagacious 
and mighty of all the allies of man. Civilization could not 
have been accomplished without the aid of these servants 
of society. The whole category of savage creatures will 
one day be tamed similarly, or exterminated. 


136 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


This production, patched together from the floating wisdom 
of the general mind, is of course no index of gifts or culture 
in the one who wrote it. Though unmistakably essay sub- 
stance, it is only parroted or spurious exposition. No pupil 
could read it in the hearing of his fellows, outside of the 
school room, and escape guying. No normal student acting 
normally will write and stand by what he feels is not credit- 
able to his intellectual pretensions. This “essay” reads like 
the work of some hired writer of high-school or freshman 
themes. 

There is practically little difference, in outside life, between 
an eleventh-grade intelligence and one of higher maturity, as 
to distinctions now in sight. High-school youths at fifteen have 
pretty much learned already, through a series of experiences, 
how to anticipate and suppress the feeble values that arise in 
thought. And even now, when a pupil finds in company that 
some idea thought worth while falls flat, he feels stultified 
and holds his peace till he is sure his next venture will com- 
mand respect. It is not less imperative that what he writes 
shall carry justifying sense than what he expresses orally, but 
more, much more. And, as we need not rehearse, justifying 
sense can be made to originate plentifully, in the student mind. 

But schools, some schools, are said not to require or look 
for justifying sense in themes, provided they are punctuated 
and paragraphed correctly. But right punctuating and para- 
graphing come from within, and are not, like embalming fluid, 
to be administered from without. They do not make dead 
thought live, or give any other sort of value to what is value- 
less. They had their origin in living speech, and solely to help 
written speech come closer to the spoken norm. We punctu- 
ate and paragraph when we talk, but we do not talk at ran- 
dom in order to practice ourselves in punctuating and para- 
graphing. We all know there would be harm in that. 

Just what is justifying sense we cannot stop here to discuss. 
The question will be considered in future pages. We may 
treat it here as a matter of common sense. Common sense as- 
sures us that we are not to play at thinking more than we 
play at remembering, or inferring, or believing, or aspiring. 
When we have reached the last years of the high school, we 


EXPOSITION 137 


are not to cultivate make-believe moralizing after the manner 
of: sixth-grade pupils. When we have been admitted to col- 
lege, we are not to set ourselves problems in permutations and 
combinations, from .cyclopedias or other sources, with the 
thoughts of others. For an example of justifying sense in sec- 
ondary English, we might ask some enlightened eleventh-grade 
student to sketch out for us in brief his notion of what is 
worth while in pets, and worth while in having pets. We may 
fairly expect to have from him in response a paragraph or 
two of first-draft exposition not much different from the fol- 
lowing: 


Petting is good for petters, as well as pets. It enlarges 
the life and nature of the objects favored, and of the 
persons who do the petting. It tamed the rat in the dun- 
geon, and likewise cured the despair and saved the reason 
of the hoary prisoner, in the ancient tale. Kindliness and 
companionship seem sometimes to lift an animal nature to 
the human level. To be assured, one needs only to watch 
the behavior of blooded colts toward their trainer, who 
has pursued his task of winning their liking and confidence 
from the first day. In a few months they will run to 
him, on sight, and rub their heads against his shoulder. 
Through the intimacy he fosters, his pets become wholly 
loyal and trustworthy, until, like the horse in Browning’s 
How They Brought the Good News, they are willing, if 
put to the test, to stake their very lives. It is love of 
the pet name, and not dread of the spur, that brings them: 
through. There is an unfathomed capacity for increased! 
existence in plants and trees, along with animals, as Bur- 
bank and the orchardists have shown. We all feel the 
impulse to aid in this enlargement of life beneath us, 
which brings conscious enlargement of the life within. I 
seem to have read somewhere that every form of life is 
akin to every other. If that is true, “petting” is in one 
sense part of a world movement to ally all things living in 
a single family. 


Principles discerned from actual cases should be flanked as 
far as practicable with examples that embody them. Refer- 
ence here to the horse, which is of course the hero of Brown- 
ing’s poem, is the climax element in the whole discussion. 
There is always danger, if we begin to write abstractly, of 


138 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


writing abstractly altogether, and of losing our reader’s interest 
and attention. The public of to-day is demanding a great deal 
more, in the English of magazines and books, than clearness 
and correctness of phrase. These, with precision, are nega- 
tive values, and do not in themselves make literature. Hence 
is it that publishers reject the majority of manuscripts sub- 
mitted, largely because of heavy diction, but especially from 
lack of that live and picturesque quality which communication 
in real life abounds in. Turgenev and Tolstoy, now accounted 
our highest models, with certain others of the last generation, 
have shown how to make exposition as attractive as fiction. 
De Amicis, the latest of these great names, ranks as by no 
means least in pictorial and carrying power. The following 
from his Cuore, one of the most remarkable books of the 
century, illustrates the general manner of the group: 


Yes, dear Enrico, study comes hard for you, as your 
Mother has remarked. But listen. Everybody, Enrico, 
everybody studies now. Think of the workmen who go 
to school evenings after working all day. Think of the 
women and the girls of the country who go to school on 
Sundays, when they have toiled all the week. Think of 
the soldiers who come in exhausted from drill, and yet 
take up their text-books and written exercises. Think of 
the blind children, and the deaf-mutes who, with all their 
handicaps, are studying. Think too of the men in prisons 
who also are learning to read and write. Think when you 
set out of a morning, that at the same moment, in your 
own city, thirty thousand other boys are going to shut 
themselves up like you, in various school rooms, to study. 
Indeed, think of the innumerable boys in all lands, who, 
nominally at the same hour, are on their way to school. 
See them, in fancy, going, going, along lanes in quiet vil- 
lages, along the streets of bustling cities, along the shores 
of lakes and banks of rivers, here under a burning sun, 
there amid fogs, sometimes in boats where the land is 
intersected by canals; on horseback over far-stretching 
prairies; in sledges over snow; through valleys and over 
hills; across forests and torrents; up along lone paths of 
mountains; alone, in pairs, in groups, in long files, all with 
books under their arms, clothed in a thousand forms, 
speaking a thousand tongues, from the remote school- 
houses of Russia, almost buried from view in ice, to the 
southernmost schoolhuts of Arabia,—millions upon mil- 


EXPOSITION 139 


lions, all pressing forward to learn the same things in a 
hundred nations, this tremendous movement of which you 
form a part, and think,—if this movement should cease, 
mankind would fall back into barbarism. This movement 
is the progress, the hope, and the glory of the world. 


Here the author first sets forth, in quantitative details; what 
lies under the common notion of schools and schooling. He 
seems to think that the appeal to comradeship, which his scenic 
review supplies, is all that will be necessary to rally Enrico 
over into the general muster. He might have shown how 
study pays, after the orthodox fashion, by appealing to the 
example of some Italian dignitary who, by surreptitious self- 
effort in the days of Austrian oppression, grew to strength, 
and became a leader. Or, oppositely, it would have been natu- 
ral to point to some down-and-out figure, some social failure 
who, born to privilege, wasted his student life, aspired to noth- 
ing, and ended a public mockery. But De Amicis has no 
thought of preaching, or of drawing stupidly obvious morals. 
He does the original thing of setting conditions, and allowing 
his son the profit of personal discovery. He ends confidently 
with the O. E. D. of this written interview, addressed not to 
Enrico only, but to the youth of Italy, and, as it has proved, 
of many other lands. 

When personal examples cannot be instanced in the develop- 
ment of a principle, we may often endow our work with imag- 
inative quality by feigning the existence of human elements 
or traits. By this expedient Henry Ward Beecher (Star 
Papers, I. xxx), on “A Certain Propriety in Storms,” makes 
palpable to thought certain half-fancied notions that we have 
perhaps considered too insubstantial to be indulged: 


Every one feels that storms are specialties, and fair 
weather the settled order in nature. Clear heavens, trans- 
parent air, and shining suns, are for common and daily 
use; good robust storms, for variety. But if it will rain, 
we do love decision and earnestness of purpose. We love 
to see Nature really in earnest, and blackfaced storms 
out as if they had a worthy errand. Great, rugged clouds, 
and the whole heaven full of them, winds that are wide 
awake, rain that comes as if it was not afraid of exhaust- 


140 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


ing the supply, and general commotion of all sorts—these 
make one glad. We always wish life and energy in storms. 
Anything but a dull, foggy drizzle, either in storms or 
men. 


Exposition may be as precise and convincing as mathemat- 
ics, and yet not fall short in visual quality. Coleridge is often, 
as here (The Landing Place V), succinctly concrete and force- 
ful: 


Was it an insignificant thing to weigh the planets, to 
determine all their courses, and prophesy every possible 
relation of the heavens a thousand years hence? Yet all 
this mighty chain of science is nothing but a linking to- 
gether of truths of the same kind as, the whole is greater 
than its parts; or, If A and B each=C, then A= B; or 
2-+4= 7, therefore 7-+5—12, and so forth.” Xis to 
be found in either A or B, or C or D. It is not found in 
A, B, or C; therefore it is to be found in D. What can 
be simpler? Apply this to a brute animal. A dog misses 
his master where four roads meet. He has come up one, 
smells two of the others, and then with his head aloft 
darts forward to the fourth road without any examina- 
tion. If this were done by a conclusion, the dog would 
have reason. How comes it then, that he never shows it 
in his ordinary habits? Why does this story excite either 
wonder or incredulity? . . . So awful and almost miracu- 
lous does the simple act of concluding that, “take three 
from four, there remains one,” appear to us, when at- 
tributed to one of the most sagacious of brute animals. 


A notion that we unconsciously derive concerning the worth 
or meaning of a thing, through long or constant familiarity 
with it as a fact, may be called “potential.” By this we sig- 
nify that our idea of its nature is not yet definite, but can be 
developed at any moment. An artist’s conception of an ideal 
face is potential only until he has worked it out into specific 
features by brush or crayon. ‘The architect’s notion of. the 
capitol he is to design remains potential until he has reduced 
it to outer definiteness by an outline projection. The inchoate 
conception of the perfect gentleman, which we have just now 
developed by the help of instances, was such a notion, lying 
ready, as one might fancy, to be expanded and added to our 


EXPOSITION 141 


capital of analyzed ideas and wisdom. As has been noted, 
various other impressions, as of culture, of perfect breeding, 
of the ideal clergyman, or statesman, or teacher, are perhaps 
still potential with us, like the one considered. When we dis- 
cover from time to time that some notion of this kind is one- 
sided or inexact, we often explain by saying, “I hadn’t thought 
of that.” We thus imply that we have been acquiescing in a 
general assumption, which, because not yet canvassed, may 
be largely wrong. 

Along with notions originating in our own minds are others 
which, vaguely derived from reading or chance remarks of 
people, are still “potential” merely. Exposition is a means or 
process of refuting false ideas, as well as of developing and 
substantiating right ones. Thus many of us have probably 
imbibed the notion that fairy lore is essentially pagan and im- 
moral. But a writer in The London Illustrated News (Feb- 
ruary 28, 1908) confidently essays to establish, in these para- 
graphs, the very opposite: 


If you really read the fairy tales, you will observe that 
one idea runs from one of them to the other—the idea 
that peace and happiness can only exist on some condition. 
This idea, which is the core of ethics, is the core of the 
nursery tales. The whole happiness of fairyland hangs 
upon a thread, upon one thread. Cinderella may have a 
dress woven on supernatural looms and blazing with un- 
earthly brilliance; but she must be back when the clock 
strikes twelve. The king may invite fairies to the chris- 
tening, but he must invite all the fairies, or frightful re- 
sults will follow. Bluebeard’s wife may open all the doors 
but one. A promise is broken to a cat, and the whole 
world goes wrong. A girl may be the bride of the God 
of Love himself if she never tries to see him; she sees 
him, and he vanishes away. A girl is given a box on 
condition she does not open it; she opens it, and all the 
evils of this world rush out at her. 

This great idea, then, is the backbone of all folklore— 
the idea that all happiness hangs on one thin veto; all 
positive joys depend on one negative. Now, it is ob- 
vious that there are many philosophical and religious 
ideals akin to or symbolized by this; but it is not with 
them I wish to deal here. It is surely obvious that all 
ethics ought to be taught to this fairy-tale tune; that, if 


142 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


one does the thing forbidden, one imperils all the things 
provided. A man who breaks his promise to his wife 
ought to be reminded that, even if she is a cat, the case 
of the fairy-cat shows that such conduct may be incau- 
tious. A burglar just about to open some one else’s safe 
should be playfully reminded that he is in the perilous 
posture of the beautiful Pandora; he is about to lift the 
forbidden lid and loosen evils unknown. The boy eat- 
ing some one’s apples in some one’s apple-tree should be 
a reminder that he has come to a mystical moment of his 
life, when one apple may rob him of all others. This 
is profound morality of fairy tales; which, so far from 
lawless, go to the root of all law. Instead of finding— 
like common books of ethics—a rationalistic basis for each 
commandment, they find the great mystical basis for all 
commandments. We are in this fairyland on sufferance; 
it is not for us to quarrel with the condition under which 
we enjoy this wild vision of the world. 


When we have developed the “potential” significance of 
facts or notions for ourselves, it is sometimes necessary to 
repeat the process at the instance or for the benefit of others. 
But the major satisfaction is achieved and spent when we 
have expressed and realized the full purpose of our idea. To 
make us repeat the steps of a spiritual discovery, with the 
forces of the mind only in part re-energized, is not good peda- 
gogy, and tends to induration. To write what we think, not 
while we think but afterwards, separates processes that, in 
usual and normal communication, belong together. For best 
literary profit, the conditions under which we are to write 
should favor spontaneity and strength. We should be helped 
in every way to compass the same zest in developing our ideas 
in written forms as we enjoy when we express them orally. 
So it will be better to select, so far as possible, subjects for 
first work in exposition that have not been staled by previous 
analysis or discussion. 


EXERCISES 


1. Develop your notion of an ideal or perfected education. 

2. Show, with somewhat of detail, what use, were you to come 
at once into possession of unlimited means, you would make of 
your wealth. 


EXPOSITION 143 


3. On discovering that the farm which you are conceivably 
about to buy of an impoverished owner is mineral land of great 
value, what course would you pursue? Express your reasons 
fully. 

4. Develop your idea of the eventual library that you expect to 
build, specifying departments, bindings and tooling proper for 
each, with arrangements of shelves and lighting. 

5. Report in outline some example of oral exposition, not from 
a lecture or sermon, that you have lately chanced to hear. 

6. What course of reading would you suggest for a young man, 
still a stranger to books, and without prospect of further or other 
education? 

7. What is the most interesting book, so far as you remember, 
that you have ever read? Bring out the reasons why you esteem 
or have esteemed it such. 

8. Compare the review departments in two or three daily jour- 
nals, and report, as in the last exercise, the best thinking and 
writing that you find. 

9g. Of what value to a man or woman of liberal culture is the 
ability to sketch scenes or objects readily? 

10. Give a description of some object whose form you have 
observed and analyzed since Chapter VIII. 

11. Report from some chapter in your textbook of history 
what parts are narrative and what expository. 


CHAPTER XV 
FORMS OF EXPOSITION 


OUBTLESS many things have come to mind, since the 

last chapter, concerning Exposition. Our idea of it has 
been potentialized to such an extent that it would require some 
time to set forth all that lies back in our consciousness waiting 
to be said. We might profitably delay a little over some of 
our impressions which, if not the most challenging, may per- 
haps be most worth while of all. 

Exposition, as we now understand it, seems more native to 
the mind than narration or description. We may suspect, in 
fact, that it is more natural to think, than to observe. It is 
possible, from brain-fag or aversion, to stop seeing, or to re- 
fuse to see. It is even possible to look at an object and not 
see it at all. But if the act of perception is compassed, noth- 
ing can prevent that act of perceiving from merging into an 
act of thinking. It might seem absurd to venture this when 
we remember the insistence of certain English educators that 
only a few people are able to think at all. On the contrary, 
to think is of the very essence of mental life. In spite of our 
difficulty in making pupils and others think what and when 
we wish, nothing can stop them, when they have really seen 
an object, from thinking—that is, from inquiring within them- 
selves, by occasion of it—at least to the extent of What, or 
How, or Why. It is hard to overestimate the importance of 
this patent truth. A scientific pedagogy, graded up to the 
level of pupils trained to observe, may one day be developed 
from it. 

This principle is sufficient to guide us, for wise use of Ex- 
position, in studentship as well as teaching. What seeing will, 
in an organic way, and most readily, merge into thinking? 
On what matters are our “notions” warrantably and adequately 


potential? The question as to which avenue of our town 
144 


FORMS OF EXPOSITION 145 


should be paved first or next will find almost every mind ready 
to answer with some degree of confidence. But an inquiry 
as to how the sentiment of the Solid South differs from the 
sentiment of the East, or of the Middle West, would interest 
but few of the people in the same city. Only those who had 
lived in both sections for a considerable time would at once 
be stirred by the consciousness that they knew and could read- 
ily and perhaps approximately answer. The question how 
mid-Victorian differs from present-day literature in America 
and England would arouse intelligence in still fewer minds. 
These questions are genuinely of the kind we have classed as 
“potential,” but are potential to those only who have been 
familiar—to repeat a former observation—with the conditions 
and elements compared. ‘Those to whom these things, the 
books and authors, and criticisms, are not potentializing, can- 
not profitably deal with them. To “get up” an acquaintance 
with recondite things like these that one has not lived with, 
that have not become a part of one’s subconscious self, in 
order to execute by way of them an “essay,”’ an exposition, is 
“academic” and illogical. It militates against the instincts of 
the mental life, hence is not educational, hence does more- 
harm than good. And, finally, it is exactly this principle which 
governs us, when we deal—no foolscap or pen in reach—with 
our fellows in face-to-face companionship, using vocal speech. 
If we have the “potential,” we are ready to tell, or discuss, or 
at least to talk. If we are not so provided, we are willing to 
be listeners to those who are, and have no idea of pretending 
to doing other or being other. This, too, is what the reader, 
the public, expects from those who are purveyors of the litera- 
ture they buy. 

Exposition will of course be various according as subjects 
differ, and as modes of treatment differ correspondingly. As 
to these latter, we shall be able here to note only products and 
examples. Procedures will be considered, under certain heads, 
in later chapters. Among those that involve no technical skill 
or preparation is the writing of editorials. These, as familiar 
comments on every-day facts and happenings, require no for- 
mal preambles or conclusions. The following, called forth 
by the peculiar circumstances of a famous strike, a few years 


146 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


back, may be taken as representative of the vast body of news- 
paper exposition forced upon our attention from day to day: 


The situation at Winnipeg up to this time is unique in 
the history of labor troubles on this continent. For weeks 
now the city has been tied up by a strike. Nothing is 
done, it seems, save by consent of the strikers. Only such 
restaurants run as they allow to run. They have sup- 
pressed all newspapers except the one which speaks for 
the strikers. There is no mail delivery. Children get 
milk. No others do. 

Winnipeg is tied up merely because people refuse to 
work and also refuse to fight. There is no lawful way 
to make men work who don’t want to work. That would 
be slavery. There is nothing for the authorities to do. 
They are helpless so long as the strikers refrain from vio- 
tence. If the strikers were to indulge in a riot, military 
force could be called in and municipal activities resumed 
under martial law. Trouble of this kind has been immi- 
nent several times during the past week. Hostile paraders 
have threatened each other, but actual clashes have been 
prevented. The strikers appear to have discovered the 
power of peace and the weakness of force. 


Writing of this kind must range of course below the level 
of literary values, which are lasting. The daily editorial is 
mainly an expedient by which all classes of patrons have their 
common notions developed and languaged for them. Little 
leadership is involved or wanted. A knack of divining what 
lies at the top of the public or the party mind is the vital 
requisite,—not learning, not practice in expository writing. 
The newspaper is no longer a one-man’s instrument. It is 
fast taking on the character of a bonded informer and diarist, 
relentless in searching out the facts, the truth, pitiless in di- 
vulging all that the public has a right to know. 

The attempt to institutionalize exposition, a movement out 
of which the editorial grew, supplies an interesting chapter in 
the history of British literature. No like distinction can be 
claimed for any other nation. The literary essay is held to 
have begun with Montaigne, and to have been naturalized in 
England by Bacon. It would be hard to prove that it did not 
originate with Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, or even earlier. 
Cowley helped it across from Bacon to Addison and Steele. 


FORMS OF EXPOSITION 147 


Then for fifty years was it over-written and over-published. 
From the outer requirement of writing recurrently, and not 
from the influence of insistent potentials within, was the essay 
of this era born. It was not natural exposition, which springs 
from inspiration, and ceases, when the potential has been ex- 
pounded, with it. The result was to lower the level of literary 
communication to the calendar level of having to communicate, 
—of perfunctory “invention” and expression. The need and 
the expectancy having been institutionalized, the expositor’s 
column as well as the poet’s corner of the newspaper came to 
be institutionalized and “featured.” 

The abuse of the mode tended of course to correct itself. 
In the fulness of time, the professional essay yielded its pres- 
tige to the novel. Scott was found to have usurped the throne 
of Johnson. Later, while Newman and his yokefellow re- 
formers were vindicating the highest claims of the old school, 
Combe and like popularizers were laying the essay level with 
the ground. More conspicuously in this country did it lie 
wounded and forlorn. It is not altogether an exaggeration 
to aver that Holmes administered to it, with his Autocrat 
papers, its coup de grace. Willis with his Letters from under 
A Bridge, his sister Mrs. Parton with her innumerous Fern 
Leaves, and much, very much of moribundia besides, dropped 
suddenly from sight. This is the passage in which Holmes al- 
ludes contemptuously to the reigning manner: 


Do not think, because I talk to you of many subjects 
briefly, that I should not find it much lazier work to take 
each one of them and dilute it down to an essay. Borrow 
some of my old coilege themes and water my remarks to 
suit yourselves, as the Homeric heroes did with their 
melas oinos, that black, sweet, sirupy wine (?) which they 
used to alloy with three parts or more of the flowing 
stream. 


Yet this seer, often credited with giving the Aiélantic its 
existence, seems not to have had in mind the typical, vital 
quality of the essay as properly considered. Its breath of life, 
as Holmes himself illustrates, is personality. Mainly medita- 
tional, like the nocturne in music, it feels its way through asso- 


148 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


ciations of thought and feeling, redolent and revelative of the 
self that has lost itself for the time being out of the actual 
world of touch and sight and hearing. Holmes surely, even 
if as claimed the most brilliant and teeming of Yankee wits, 
must have excepted Lamb from the duncehood he satirizes. 
Had he not read these parts of Grace before Meat? 


I own that I am disposed to say grace upon twenty 
other occasions in the course of the day besides my din- 
ner. I want a form for setting out upon a pleasant walk, 
for a moonlight ramble, for a friendly meeting, or a 
solved problem. Why have we none for books, those 
spiritual repasts—a grace before Milton—a grace before 
Shakspeare—a devotional exercise proper to be said be- 
fore reading the Fairy Queen? . 

I once drank tea in company with two Methodist di- 
vines of different persuasions, whom it was my fortune to 
introduce to each other for the first time that evening. 
Before the first cup was handed round, one of these rever- 
end gentlemen put it to the other, with all due solemnity, 
whether he chose to say anything. It seems it is the cus- 
tom with some sectaries to put up a short prayer before 
this meal also. His reverend brother did not at first quite 
apprehend him, but upon an explanation, with little less 
importance he made answer that it was not a custom 
known in his church: in which courteous evasion the other 
acquiescing for good manners’ sake, or in compliance with 
a weak brother, the supplementary or tea-grace was 
waived altogether. With what spirit might not Lucian 
have painted two priests of his religion playing into each 
other’s hands the compliment of performing or omitting 
a sacrifice—the hungry god meantime, doubtful of his in- 
cense, with expectant nostrils hovering over the two 
flamens, and—as between two stools—going away in the 
end without his supper. 


Holmes has supplied us abundantly with further specimens 
of Exposition, which may be called Parenthetic, or Incidental. 

The origin of the mode is not difficult to trace. Two neigh- 
bors shaking hands over their division fence, and genially 
agreeing that it is a glorious morning, cannot keep from co- 
operatively reasoning out, in the next breath, whether there 
shall be rain, or frost, or whether the season promises to be 
droughty, or business to be slow. In real life everywhere, 


FORMS OF EXPOSITION 149 


there will be always a constant quantum of thought substance 
in conversation, proportionate with the rest of talk, and all 
served, so to speak, on a common salver, without entrées, and 
with a heavy course of preachments and advice dispensed with 
altogether. 

The like is coming to be true of written intercourse and 
communication. Authorship is close approaching alliance and 
even fellowship with its public. The tone of literature is grow- 
ing less officious and presuming. The piece de résistance of 
formal, moralizing exposition has been dispersed throughout 
the intellectual diet of the day, not only in articles and ad- 
dresses, but in works on biography and history. The old- 
time essay is not dead, as some critics insist, not by any means. 
We assimilate its substance, as in conversation, unconsciously, 
in applied morsels. Its thoughts, its sentences remain often as 
scattered parts, yet serving approximately, in effect, the pur- 
pose of a whole. This is true more palpably of our modern 
fiction. One might assert, for a half-truth, that the English 
novel has been built upon the ruins of exposition. Whole 
pages of such substance, practically dissociated from the march 
of the plot, are met with in our chief novelists, and are not 
skipped by many a reader who could not be induced to sit 
down to a “course” of essays proper. The public thus gets 
all the philosophical or moralizing substance that it cares for, 
without having it supplied in a different volume and at an- 
other time. In the first dozen chapters of Thackeray’s Vanity 
Fair, not less than 18 per cent is essay matter. Here are ex- 
amples from Meredith, the unprofessional essayist, in partner- 
ship with Meredith the professional writer of fiction: 


Among boys there are laws of honour and chivalrous 
codes, not written or formally taught, but intuitively un- 
derstood by all, and invariably acted upon by the loyal 
and the true. The race is not nearly civilized, we must 
remember. Thus, not to follow your leader whitherso- 
ever he may think proper to lead; to back out of an expe- 
dition because the end of it frowns dubious, and the pres- 
ent fruit of it is discomfort; to quit a comrade on the 
road, and return home without him: these are tricks 
which no boy of spirit would be guilty of, let him come 
to any description of mortal grief in consequence. Better 


150 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


so than have his own conscience denouncing him sneak. 
Some boys who behave boldly enough are not troubled by 
this conscience, and the eyes and the lips of their fellows 
have to supply the deficiency. They do it with just as 
haunting, and even more horrible pertinacity, than the 
inner voice, and the result, if the probation be not very 
severe and searching, is the same. The leader can rely on 
the faithfulness of his host: the comrade is sworn to 
serve. 


When we are losing balance on a precipice we do not 
think much of the thing we have clutched for support. 
Our balance is restored and we have not fallen; that is 
the comfortable reflection: we stand as others do, and we 
will for the future be warned to avoid the dizzy stations 
which cry for resources beyond a common equilibrium, 
and where a slip precipitates us to ruin. 

When, further, it is a woman planted in a burning 
blush, having to idealize her feminine weakness, that she 
may not rebuke herself for grovelling, the mean material 
acts by which she sustains a tottering position are speed- 
ily swallowed in the one pervading flame. She sees but an 
ashen curl of the path she has traversed to safety, if any- 
thing. 


In contrast with this peculiar manner of exposition, not yet 
a century old, stands another, the oldest of all, and derived 
from the oratory of classical times. This is the Sermon. It 
is more or less directly interpretative of some important prin- 
ciple or caption called a Text. It is often developed from an 
idea considered or called (Chapter XXI) original. So far as 
designed to be persuasive, it involves the quality (Chapter 
XXII) of Argumentation. But it is at bottom expository, and 
depends for its value and success upon the organic soundness 
of its potentials, and the simplicity and concreteness of the 
treatment chosen. Studied and formal pulpit oratory, as 
known to us and as standardized under Greek and Roman 
rhetors, did not of course come in until the persecutions of 
the Early Church had ceased. 

A derivative of the sermon, and not unlike it in organiza- 
tion and method, is the Lecture. In New England, where it 
grew up as, in a sense, the foster child of the Election Ser- 
mon, it became the crowning element and feature of the Ly- 


FORMS OF EXPOSITION 151 


ceum. Largely informative and instructive, it was ended often 
with a perorational appeal. Some of the profoundest thought 
of Emerson, as Nature, was first given to the public through 
this medium. In the closing quarter of the roth century, the 
Lyceum gave way before the Chautauqua movement, which 
since the Great War has much declined. Asa form of exposi- 
tion, the Lecture seems destined to revert to its medizval place 
in the universities. 

The question whether good exposition may not be made to 
exist through excellencies of management and style hardly 
needs consideration here. It should now be clear that things 
not worth while to say cannot be made worth saying by elab- 
oration or gracefulness of manner, whether spoken or writ- 
ten. Otherwise would Shakespeare’s Gratiano have ranked 
with him as Sir Oracle indeed. But things worth while to 
read or hear may be made more worth while by select and 
distinguished diction. Within a few years of the time when 
Lamb’s Essays of Elia were appearing in the London Maga- 
zine, William Hazlitt was producing papers on Literature, 
Men and Manners which from then till now have been thought 
remarkable for incisiveness and strength, though not for fin- 
ish. The following, from his essay, “On Egotism,” will illus- 
trate the essential qualities of his work, and of the class which 
he represents : 


The proud man fancies that there is no one worth re- 
garding but himself; he might as well fancy there is no 
other being but himself. The one is not a greater stretch 
of madness than the other. To make pride justifiable, 
there ought to be but one proud man in the world, for if 
any one individual has a right to be so, nobody else has. 
So far from thinking ourselves superior to all the rest of 
the species, we cannot be sure that we are above the mean- 
est and most despised individual of it: for he may have 
some virtue, some excellence, some source of happiness 
or usefulness within himself, which may redeem all other 
disadvantages. Even if he is without any such hidden 
worth, this is not a subject of exultation, but of regret, to 
any one tinctured with the smallest humanity, and he who 
is totally devoid of the latter, cannot have much reason 
to be proud of anything else. Arkwright, who invented 
the spinning jenny, for many years kept a paltry barber’s 


152 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


shop in a provincial town. Yet at that time that won- 
derful machinery was working in his brain, which has 
added more to the wealth and resources of this country 
than all the pride of ancestry or insolence of upstart no- 
bility for the last hundred years. We should be cautious 
whom we despise. If we do not know them, we can have 
no right to pronounce a hasty sentence. If we do, they 
may espy some few defects in us. 


Here evidently what the author wishes and is impelled to 
say is not assisted by the way the sense comes out. Often 
one’s phrase seems to be supplied ideally from the strength of 
one’s inspiration. When a writer feels that he has not ex- 
pressed his best in his best way, he should consider his pro- 
duction worth his pains to retouch. MHazlitt apparently did 
not. 

For an example of exposition in which manner has not been 
neglected even at apparent cost of revision, we may compare 
this, from Channing’s Self-Culture: 


Some are discouraged from proposing to themselves im- 
provement, by the false notion that the study of books, 
which their situation denies them, is the all-important and 
only sufficient means. Let such consider that the grand 
volumes, of which all our books are transcripts, I mean 
nature, revelation, the human soul, and human life— 
are freely unfolded to every eye. The great sources of 
wisdom are experience and observation; and these are 
denied to none. To open and fix our eyes upon what 
passes without and within us is the most fruitful study. 
Books are chiefly useful as they help us to interpret what 
we see and experience. When they absorb men, as they 
sometimes do, and turn them from observation of nature 
and life, they generate a learned folly, for which the 
plain sense of the laborer could not be exchanged but at 
great loss. It deserves attention that the greatest men 
have been formed without the studies which at. present 
are thought by many most needful to improvement. 
Homer, Plato, Demosthenes, never heard the name of 
chemistry, and knew less of the solar system than a boy 
in our common schools. Not that these sciences are unim- 
portant; but the lesson is, that human improvement never 
wants the means, where the purpose of it is deep and 
earnest in the soul. 


FORMS OF EXPOSITION 153 


Finally, we instance a paragraph from Ruskin, to end our 
general survey. Though often quoted, it seems best to instance 
it again as embodying depth, and finish, and fervor in a degree 
not easy to surpass. It also exhibits and signalizes the most 
vital feature of exposition, which it is not too early to mention, 
namely, Concreteness, and which will be discussed with some 
fulness in Chapter XXVIII. 


The orders of animals are the serpent and the bird; 
the serpent, in which the breath or spirit is less than in 
any other creature, and the earth-power greatest ;—the 
bird, in which the breath or spirit is more full than in 
any other creature, and the earth-power least. 

We will take the bird first. It is little more than a drift 
of the air brought into form by plumes; the air is in its 
quills, it breathes through its whole frame and flesh, 
and glows with air in its flying, like blown flame: it 
rests upon the air, subdues it, surpasses it, outraces it; 
nes air, conscious of itself, conquering itself, ruling 
itself. 

Also, in the throat of the bird is given the voice of 
the air. All that in the wind itself is weak, wild, use- 
less in sweetness, is knit together in its song. As we may 
imagine the wild form of the cloud closed into the perfect 
form of the bird’s wings; so the wild voice of the cloud 
into its ordered and commanded voice; unwearied, rippling 
through the clear heaven in its gladness, interpreting all 
intense passion through the soft spring nights, bursting 
into acclaim and rapture of choir at daybreak, or lisping 
and twittering among the boughs and hedges through 
heat of day, like little winds that only make the cowslip 
bells shake, and ruffle the petals of the wild rose. 

Also, upon the plumes of the bird are put the colors 
of the air: on these the gold of the cloud, that cannot be 
gathered by any covetousness; the rubies of the clouds, 
that are not the price of Athena, but are Athena; the 
vermilion of the cloud-bar, and the flame of the cloud- 
crest, and the snow of the cloud, and its shadow, and the 
melted blue of the deep wells of the sky—all these, seized 
by the creating spirit, and woven by Athena herself into 
films and threads of plume; with wave on wave following 
and fading along breast, and throat, and opened wings, 
infinite as the dividing of the foam and the sifting of 
the sea-sand ;—even the white down of the cloud seeming 
to flutter up between the stronger plumes, seen, but too 
soft for touch. 


154 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


And so the Spirit of the Air is put into, and upon, this 
created form; and it becomes, through twenty centuries, 
the symbol of divine help, descending, as the Fire, to 
speak, but as the Dove, to bless. 


We see that there is, in this, form as well as unction, and 
that the form equally with the unction comes from the inspira- 
tion of the theme. We are conscious, also, of unusual har- 
mony, a quality which, as part of form, makes the finish more 
palpable to the ear. 

In contrast with Exposition, which is primarily detailed 
thinking, is to be reckoned Explanation. We “explain” how 
to describe a scene, or draw it, by indicating steps in a process. 
But, if we are asked to give reasons why we take such steps 
severally, or proceed at all, we must appeal to principles, and 
attempt some sort or degree of exposition. 

Explanation is employed perhaps oftenest in making known 
the construction of complex objects, or the manner in which 
they should be used. The following, from Darwin’s Voyage 
of a Naturalist (Chapter III), illustrates both these forms: 


The Bolas, or balls, are of two kinds; the simplest, 
which is chiefly used for catching ostriches, consists of 
two round stones, covered with leather, and united by a 
thin plaited thong, about eight feet long. The other 
kind differs only in having three balls united by the thongs 
to a common center. The Gaucho holds the smallest 
of the three in his hand, and whirls the other two round 
and round his head; then, taking aim, sends them like 
chain shot revolving through the air. The balls no sooner 
strike any object than, winding round it, they cross each 
other, and become firmly hitched. The size and weight of 
the balls varies, according to the purpose for which they 
are made: when of stone, although not larger than an 
apple, they are sent with such force as sometimes to break 
the leg even of a horse. I have seen the balls made of 
wood, and as large as a turnip, for the sake of catching 
those animals without injuring them. The balls are some- 
times made of iron, and these can be hurled to the greatest 
distance. The main difficulty in using the bolas is to 
ride so well as to be able, at full speed and while sud- 
denly turning about, to whirl them so steadily round the 
head, as to take aim. On foot any person would soon 
learn the art. One day, as I was amusing myself by gal- 


FORMS OF EXPOSITION 155 


loping and whirling the balls round my head, by accident 
the free one struck a bush; and its revolving motion be- 
ing thus destroyed, it immediately fell to the ground, and 
like magic caught one hind leg of my horse; the other 
ball was then jerked out of my hand, and the horse fairly 
secured. Luckily he was an old practiced animal, and 
knew what it meant; otherwise he would probably have 
kicked till he had thrown himself down. The Gauchos 
roared with laughter; they cried out that they had seen 
every sort of animal caught, but had never before seen 
aman caught by himself. 


Exposition is sometimes treated as identical with Explana- 
tion, but is generally considered a higher concept. We should 
hardly expect one to speak of “explaining” his notion of de- 
cency or civility. But we should expect the manager of an in- 
surance office to explain why he accounted one certain solici- 
tor more profitable to the business than another. Any sort of 
paradox or obscurity or difficulty, we may explain away, but 
do not expound “away.” Authorities make an exposition of 
the doctrine of evolution, of free will, of state sovereignty, of 
protection, of free trade. We explain the discrepancies in an 
account. We expound the theory of least squares. We ex- 
plain the mystery of a robbery. We explain the circular course 
followed by cranes in migrations across the Mediterranean, but 
attempt to provide an exposition of the laws of instinct by 
which the “power of the air” compels and governs its crea- 
tures in their tireless yearly flittings. We explain facts by 
facts. We expound or demonstrate major truths and princi- 
ples, as in geometry, by minor truths. 

The most practicable materials from which to make stud- 
ies in exposition are the impressions left upon our minds by 
the literature we read. At the moment of laying down a book, 
we are almost always persuaded, and confidently, as to its pur- 
port and value. All such effects of reading are potential no- 
tions of a high order, and are capable of being reduced to prin- 
ciples and conclusions of surprising interest and concern. It 
is easy to make over an exposition of this kind, by mending 
its proportions and diction into a review, a criticism, or al- 
most any other kind of written contribution that we may be 
called upon to furnish. Were we resolutely to execute the pur- 


156 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


pose, on finishing the reading of a worthy piece of literature, 
of at once developing the impressions derived from it, we 
should in no long time acquire, not only readiness and facility 
of phrase, but also the rarer and more difficult accomplishment 
that is called a Style. 


EXERCISES 


1. Read Wendell Phillips’s lecture on The Lost Arts, report what 
you discover to be its purpose, and specify what parts are in- 
formative, what explanatory, and what finally are expositional. 

2. Read the address again, and with it any two others of the 
series. Observe the author’s manner of opening and closing in 
each case, and make a comparative report. 

3. Show why this country has been called The Land of Oppor- 
tunity. 

4. Of what effects from the Great War upon people of your 
town or neighborhood do you find yourself aware? Develop your 
idea or ideas fully. 

5. Examine the editorial matter in your daily newspaper, for 
a period of days, and copy what seem examples of worth-while 
exposition. 

6. Detail the points of exposition as gathered from some recent 
sermon. 

7. Read Newman’s Idea of a University, and make report of 
what he brings out by exposition. 

8. What does a college-bred man owe the community in which 
he settles? In what ways may he discharge his obligation? 

g. Examine one of Frederick W. Robertson’s sermons, and dis- 
cuss in brief the form, the vigor, and the finish of the exposition. 

10. Find a good example of Explanation, and expound why it 
is not Exposition. 

11. Explain how the cinematograph can be utilized to exhibit, 
in a few seconds, the development of an American Beauty Rose, 
through many days, from bud to full expansion. 

12. Compare the essay papers in two or three standard month- 
lies, and discuss any that seem to belong to our third class of 
exposition. 

13. Develop, in two or three paragraphs of exposition, your 
idea of rhetoric as a means of learning to write, and as an aid 
to the appreciation of good writing. 

14. Read rapidly but carefully the best-selling novel of the 


FORMS OF EXPOSITION 157 


moment, and express pointedly your strongest impressions and con- 
victions. 

15. Make an explanation of some device or experiment of your 
own contriving. 

16. Imagining yourself a trained and accomplished writer, able 
to produce any sort of literature at will, indicate what work you 
would first put in shape to publish. Sketch out the idea that comes 
to your mind, showing how you would begin, how divide and 
develop the subject, and what persons or incidents or experiences 
you would introduce. 


CHAPTER XVI 
CHARACTERIZATION 


VERY man’s character is in a sense his secret, and can- 

not be known except through signs observed and inter- 
preted by his fellows. Before any one can present a charac- 
ter, he must have read it and realized it, from such signs, with 
approximate accuracy and completeness. 

Fortunately, we learn how to read character rather early, 
and without waiting to be taught. To the end of our lives, we 
employ ourselves, and in general much more than we are 
aware, in noting and interpreting marks of personality. 

We gain our conceptions of character by a double process 
that may be called Imaginative Inference. We infer a char- 
acter from signs, and we construct it in fancy, virtually at 
the same instant. For example, some well-dressed woman 
tries to get into the line, ahead of us at the stamp-window, 
and we find ourselves losing sight of her outward looks in the 
discovery of the inconsiderate and self-seeking disposition that 
controls her. Some prominent townsman, in the same line, is 
seen insisting that a shamefaced boy shall not be crowded 
from his place, but shall have his turn before himself. At 
once our minds merge the physical presence of the man in a 
vision of the inner nature which he has unwittingly disclosed. 
On the street, a moment after, we see a drayman lashing his 
overloaded horses. We immediately envisage his irascible and 
unreasonable personality, and pronounce him unfit to deal re- 
sponsibly with animals or men. 

Here again, as we note, the mind is not satisfied with acts or 
facts as such, but must go back to the motives which have 
inspired them. The behavior of the townsman towards the 
shamefaced lad was due to a principle of justice which be- 
came, for the moment, the absorbing, compelling element in 
his nature, otherwise the whole man could hardly have been 


drawn into an action so conspicuous and unusual. The real 
158 


CHARACTERIZATION 1359 


disposition of the woman presumed to be a lady remained un- 
suspected until she tried to appropriate the rights of those who 
had come earlier than herself. The man who abused his horses 
betrayed a principle of cruelty that proved stronger than the 
other forces in his nature. We know at once what each of 
these actions means, since it is a typical act, carrying always 
the same moral significance, and denoting always the same 
trait of character as its cause. 

We not only read character continually, but almost as con- 
stantly draw it. For contrast, we shall see how Bjornson, in 
Synnove Solbakken, presents the character of Aslak: 


Aslak was ready at once, so they threw snowballs first 
at the slender spruce over by the store-house, then at the 
store-house door, and finally at the store-house window. 

“Not at the window itself,” said Aslak, “but at the frame 
around it.’ Meanwhile Thorbear hit a window pane, 
and turned pale. 

“Pooh! Who will know it? Try again.” 

Thorbear did so, but hit another. 


By this single act of inveigling the younger lad into breaking 
his father’s windows, the author makes us see, not only 
Aslak’s cunning, which prompted the trick, but his whole na- 
ture. Besides, we picture to ourselves, more or less clearly, 
the face and figure of Aslak, as indeed also of his victim. 

The means used here is what is called, in Chapter V, the 
Visualizing Action. It is evident that the visual acts which 
were used there, as examples, exhibited in outline the char- 
acters severally considered. We actually sketched, in each 
case, the personality merely to make the reader construct an 
exterior appearance to match the character. We now utilize 
the product which was then brought into existence for the 
sake of this by-product. It is clear also how a typical act 
makes the character of the doer a unit to imagination. The 
whole man or woman is involved consentingly or morally in 
each manifestation of personality. 

Of course an action, such as Bjornson uses, serves to out- 
line a character merely, just as the first strokes of an artist 
set out the type of face or form. The author can add fea- 


160 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


tures afterwards as needed. Subordinate personalities, such as 
Aslak’s here, are often left mere outlines, like figures sketched 
by cartoonists for the papers. But the principal characters in 
fiction, when drawn by master hands, are continually under 
the brush, like an important portrait that the artist is never 
in the mood to finish. 

But there is a further effect from drawing character be- 
yond discerning personality, as such, from action given. Read- 
ing our example again, we note that we do not stop at seeing 
what Aslak is now in his inner nature. We more pointedly 
and completely visualize what he will grow into, and what 
bigger mischief he will be sure to do, not with boys but gul- 
lible men and women, at his maturity. 

This is the essential part of character-drawing, and furnishes 
its chief significance in literary art. In literature and in paint- 
ing, as in actual life, we are more concerned with what a per- 
sonality is in potencies than with what it is in actuals. Imag- 
ination insists on taking a further step, and visualizing or real- 
izing the given character in action. To indicate probable con- 
duct is generally the governing motive when we draw a char- 
acter for the benefit of others, or when others draw charac- 
ters that we need to know. 

At a bank not long ago, a student customer endorsed for his 
friend a promissory note. On receiving the money, this friend, 
without stopping to count it, thrust the roll of bills into the 
pocket of his ulster, and hurried away. The cashier of the 
bank took the endorser to task for signing the note. “Can’t 
you see,” he said, “that a man who handles money in a way 
like that is no responsible person? You will have to pay that 
loan.” 

The action of the mind, which behaves consistently in all 
such cases, is easily analyzed. The careless handling of the 
money 1S recognized as a typical act. The mind goes back of 
this typical action and infers a trait of recklessness as its 
cause. “The man is careless about money that is not his. He 
has then a character that renders him indifferent to his obliga- 
tions.” Imagination now takes the forward step, and from 
this cause confidently discerns, as a conclusion, that he will 
fail of his duty in this case. The former action, its moral 


CHARACTERIZATION 161 


quality as a cause, and the effect that will follow in the present 
instance, are all seen visually in a single flash of insight. The 
conclusion is alone of vital concern, and is really that which 
has aroused and holds, subconsciously, the energy of our 
thought. 

There is progression of imaginative interest in such cases, 
as will have been noted, if there is interest at all. This will be 
clearer if we indicate the steps graphically, by a diagram: 


SPHERE OF IMAGINA- el papasel re UMAGINATIVE 
TION AND THE INTEL- EFFECT 
LECTUAL LIFE INTENDED 


MATERIAL SPHERE OF 
THE SENSES AND THE 
PHYSICAL LIFE 





The act of thrusting the large roll of bills loosely in the 
pocket of an overcoat engages our attention to a degree which 
may be represented by the circle marked “Effect Given.” This 
happens of course in the outside, material sphere, and is seen 
by the physical eye. Then the field shifts to the world of 
imagination. We are drawn to visualize the character that has 
inspired the initial action, and we indicate the larger product 
and the enlarged interest by the circle “Character as Cause.” 
Our concern is greatest when we find pictured in fancy the 
eventual defection of the borrower and the betrayal of his 
friend. This climax feature we attempt to signify by the 
relative largeness of the final circle. 

It is remarkable how the world at large stakes its chiefest 
public as well as its smallest private concerns upon its faith 
in the last step of this imaginative though logical procedure. 
Our Naval Bureau in 1898 chose Captain Clark, from a con- 
tingent of doughty officers, to bring the Oregon round Cape 
Horn towards Cuba in the teeth of the Spanish fleet. He 


162 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


had shown strange patience and dogged persistence in playing 
chess, and from his way of playing chess as an “act given” a 
character was pictured, and from this character as a common 
“cause,” he was judged capable of evading capture and find- 
ing the Atlantic squadron. Napoleon, friendless, despairing, 
won the chance of crushing the faithless National Guards, 
with grapeshot, and by this act impressed the Convention 
with his power and daring. From the character thus con- 
ceived, he was inferred worthy to command the Army of the 
Interior, and began his meteoric career. In both these cases, 
the confidence felt in the decision amounted in effect to certi- 
tude. In the vividness with which the “cause” or personality 
was envisaged lay the sureness of conviction. In matters of 
merely personal moment, a single illustration will suffice. A 
somewhat fastidious young graduate of Yale became inter- 
ested, while on travel in the Orient, in a young countrywoman 
of singular accomplishments and charm, but lost such interest 
after hearing her pronounce umbrella as if r were the last 
letter. His change of feeling was caused by dread, not so 
much of hearing the word again, as of deeper flaws in culture, 
which this slip seemed threateningly to presage. But of noth- 
ing in this man’s after life was he surer than of his wisdom 
in suspending an acquaintanceship which had been most aus- 
piciously begun. 

It will have perhaps been noted that the “common cause” 
in each of the examples now considered is really a “potential 
notion” of the kind considered under Exposition. In charac- 
ter-drawing by emotional inference, the personality visualized 
can never be other or better than potential. The intended ef- 
fect of character-drawing, as represented by the third and 
largest circle, can hardly be accomplished if more than a single 
typical action is brought to view at the same time. Most 
characterizations kept alive by popular tradition, as of Giotto 
and his circle, and of Washington and the cherry tree, illus- 
trate the principle. Oral characterizations, which are in gen- 
eral the most potent and vivid that we know, are usually ef- 
fected by a single typical act. The same is true of character 
treatment in newspapers, when the discussion is dropped after 
a single anecdote. Not long ago, the New York Evening Post 


CHARACTERIZATION 163 


published this incident relating to Dr. Bull, the famous sur- 
geon, who had lately died: 


While Dr. Bull was already ill with his fatal distemper, 
a young doctor called to ask advice concerning a poor 
girl in his neighborhood, who would surely die unless 
operated upon immediately. Dr. Bull, at once taking his 
Overcoat, proposed to see the patient. They found the 
girl in an East Side tenement, and in less time than it takes 
to tell it, Dr. Bull had the room cleared and began the 
operation. When he was leaving, the father of the girl 
met him in the hali, and forced a quarter into his hand. 
Dr. Bull went off feeling as happy,—happier than if he 
had received a thousand-dollar fee. The girl got well. 
New York will miss Doctor Bull. 


We notice that the writer does not say, on finishing the story, 
that he has drawn the character of Dr. Bull. Nor does he 
formulate what the character was. He takes for granted that 
we see it, as he sees it, in what he tells. His concern is only 
with the third circle,—that is, with making his reader feel as 
well as conceive the worth of such a figure to the community 
and the times. 

It is thus clear why the specification of implied traits in a 
given character is the prerogative of the reader and not the 
writer. It is as impertinent to assume that we can develop 
the features in a personality, which others discern with us, bet- 
ter than those who read or hear. When the writer in the Post 
had grasped the meaning of Dr. Bull’s personality, he pre- 
sented an action inspired by it which enabled us to grasp it 
with him. To do more would not be art, which disdains to 
explain its meanings. To draw a character is to use art, and 
by this means make our reader discover it imaginatively for 
himself. If he does not so discover it and discern it, no enumer- 
ation or discussion of traits will supply the lack. To at- 
tempt this is not the method of life, which the Post reporter 
follows, and would only bore and perhaps distress the discern- 
ing part of the public served. 

All men and women, of every race and speech, engage in- 
cessantly in oral characterizations of the kind just shown, and 
seem always unconscious of their processes. Most authors 


164 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


to-day draw character similarly, by instinct, seldom inquiring 
how they make or have made their work effective. But now 
and then a writer becomes reflective, and analyzes the behavior 
of his mind. This means that characterization, now as always 
an art, is beginning to be a science also. Bram Stoker speaks 
thus of the manner in which he prepared his Reminiscences of 
Henry Irving (Vol. I, p. ix): 


As I cannot give the myriad of details and impressions 
which went to the making up of my own convictions, I 
have tried to select such instances as were self-sufficient 
for the purpose. If here and there I have been able to lift 
for a single instant the veil which covers the mystery of 
individual nature, I shall have made something known 
which must help the lasting memory of my dear dead 
friend. 


One of our prominent American authors explains his method 
with more detail. When he is preparing, he reports, to write 
a novel, he makes an inventory of the actions that might be 
used as means of exhibiting his chief character. Selecting the 
most prominent of these, he draws the character in proper 
form, and adjusts the treatment to the story. Putting the 
page or paragraph aside, he waits till the text is cold, then 
tests the effectiveness of the actions used. If they do not seem 
to engage imagination potently enough, he makes another trial, 
choosing other acts and traits. When the treatment carries, he 
copies in the work. He deals with other characters, as they are 
brought on by the plot, in the same way. 

If we take up any good novel that lies in reach, we shall dis- 
cover the same method, with little variation, of setting on foot 
the story. There is some conspicuous act of strength, or skill, 
or of moral greatness, which the author will make imagination 
accept as typical of the hero or the heroine that is to be. In 
Cynthia Stockley’s The Claw—which we choose from books 
at hand, and which is laid in South Africa before the Boer 
War—the author thus presents the hero in her woman’s way: 


There was just the faintest suspicion of a rustling of 
leaves. An instant later something in my companion’s 
intent gaze and attitude told me that the psychological 


CHARACTERIZATION 165 


moment had come. He could see something and was 
taking aim. I glanced at the dim, shadowy mass of foliage 
towards which his rifle pointed, and for one moment saw 
nothing. Then something huge and pale and massive 
came bounding high in the air out of the shadows and 
the horse cried out like a human being. The Martini- 
Henry cracked twice and a blinding flash of gunpowder 
filled the air. Later I heard, “There’s no danger. Only 
we must be quiet. There’s probably another of them 
about. I should like to pot him too.’ Needless to say, 
I sat still with all my might. The great honey-colored 
body fascinated my eyes, but there was something ex- 
traordinarily reassuring in the scent of mingled gun- 
powder and tobacco that hung about the gray flannel sleeve 
close to me. 


Characterizations are sometimes remarkable for their brev- 
ity. This is from De Morgan’s Likely Story (p. 175): 


Miss Jennie Bax, another niece, who was shy and 
seventeen. She began everything she said with “Oh!” 


Our first studies in written or literary characterization will 
involve bringing under the eye of consciousness our personal, 
oral command of the universal mode. We have been drawing 
character daily, ever since we can remember, and drawing it 
doubtless as clearly and strongly as our fellows. We must do 
it now by selection, assembling and comparing all of the typi- 
cal actions that we have seen. It is with these that the people 
about us have inadvertently lifted, from ourselves, “the veil 
which covers the mystery of individual nature.” It is only 
with the best of these that we can lift the veil effectually from 
individual nature, by character-drawing, to our readers. 


EXERCISES 


1. Report the best example of offhand oral character-drawing 
that you have heard recently or to-day, and discuss its visual 
effectiveness and strength. 

2. Draw the character of some strong or energetic person 
whom you have at some time known, by use of a single visual 
action. | 

3. Recall other typical actions of this person, and determine 


166 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


if possible the one by which you were enabled to read the char- 
acter. 

4. Report in writing, from current fiction, two good examples 
of character-drawing, and show means employed. Add, in sepa- 
rate paragraphs, some discussion of the success and merits of the 
work in each. 

5. Give an account of some striking incident, lately observed, 
which could serve as material for a literary characterization. 

6. Recall and reconstruct an impromptu oral characterization 
which you have lately ventured, and which seemed at the moment 
especially vivid and satisfying. Show how it differs from the 
one you would be likely to draw, of the same person, if begun re- 
flectively and in writing. 

7. Make a report of your latest experience in reading char- 
acter, and instance the act that arrested attention and forced 
you to visualize the personality. 

8. Report a number of visual actions, personally observed at 
large, which could serve as materials for literary use. 

g. Select one from the actions just reported, and frame with 
it a characterization that might be entered as a paragraph in a 
novel or short story. 

10. Recall and copy from books which you have read the most 
striking example of characterization that you remember, and make 
an explanation or exposition of the reasons for its vividness and 
power. 


CHAPTER XVII 
CHARACTERIZATION (CONTINUED) 


T is easier to read character than to draw it. We often 
discern a personality, vividly, that we seem unable to pre- 
sent, with any degree of clearness, to either hearers or readers. 
The best visual action that we can select, actions that have 
enabled us to read character confidently, may fail wholly of 
such effect when told to those not with us when the acts were 
seen. We are thus forced often to search out stronger means, 
in drawing character, than first attracted us to the given per- 
sonality and made us wish to share our appreciation of it 
with other minds. 

Visual actions, as has been shown, compel imagination to 
realize the transaction mentioned, and incidentally the physi- 
cal presence, as well as the personality. But visual actions, 
as we have perhaps begun to suspect, are not the only signs 
or proofs, and are often by no means the most significant 
signs or proofs, of character. The vital element in visualizing 
action is the individual soul, or quality of will, that governs 
in the given case. This element is often evinced in physical 
action not at all typical or characteristic of the person per- 
forming it. 


Not many years ago, on a farm in a Mid-Western state, 
lived a boy who aspired to a college education. He knew 
that such education was free at the state university, and 
he developed plans for graduation there. Then the times 
grew hard. His father died and left the care of his mother 
to his hands. Through the influence of local politicians, 
he secured the post of page at the state capitol during a 
session of the legislature. A maximum rate bill had been 
forced through the senate, and he chanced to be chosen 
to carry it, after it was signed, to the engrossing com- 
mittee. In the corridor he was stopped by a railway at- 
torney, who excitedly offered him five hundred and then 
a thousand dollars to suRW: a bill to leave his hands a 


168 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


moment. Visions of four years at the university, in the 
instant of delay, rose in his thought. He realized also, 
in a flash of fancy, the consciousness he must carry, if 
he yielded, all his life through, and the folly of buying 
higher education for his mind at cost of degrading his 
whole nature, and he passed, shaking his head almost im- 
perceptibly but firmly, to the engrossing rooms. 


General Putnam’s exploits of shooting the wolf in the cavern, 
and of spurring his horse down a stone staircase of a hundred 
steps, are visual actions clearly differentiated from known 
deeds of other men. But the physical act of moving one’s head 
slightly from side to side furnishes no adequate means of dis- 
tinguishing one human personality from another. The be- 
havior of the youth, as he went past his tempter to the com- 
mittee room, probably differed in no determinate way from 
the gait and movements of other pages or other folk, yet the 
transaction was doubtless unique in history. The incident 
stands pictured more vividly in our minds than many re- 
membered scenes of large moment to ourselves. The manner 
in a physical act of speaking offers no usual means of dis- 
tinguishing one mind or one nature from another, while the 
matter in and behind the act may differentiate the speaker 
notably, as in the final quotation of the last chapter, from all 
others of his circle. 

We must then distinguish visualizing actions from typical 
actions, of which they constitute a considerable subclass. 
Typical actions, if sufficiently intense in motivation, need not 
be outwardly visual, or palpably physical at all. Numerous 
examples might be cited. 


In 1903, a Boston gentleman discovered a mine in the 
Klondike, and removed with his family to Dawson, to 
develop it. In the winter following, while returning on 
foot from the settlement with his son, he was seized with 
drowsiness. He was worn with the fatigue of the out- 
ward journey, which the son, a youth of fourteen years, 
had not chanced to share. This son, realizing the danger, 
urged his father to keep in motion. Finding this unavail- 
ing, the youth feigned that he was himself attacked with 
a like fit of drowsiness, and proposed that they both give 
themselves up to a brief period of sleep. To save his 


CHARACTERIZATION 169 


son, the father roused himself. At length they reached 
the camp, but only by the father’s threatened and actual 
use of the dog-whip, since the boy pleaded continually to 
be allowed a moment’s rest. 


The physical act of the father’s lashing the youth is visual 
enough, but that is not the compelling part of the incident. 
- The action of the son, who pleaded pretendingly for the chance 
to sleep, is the vital element, or (p. 161) the “effect given,” 
which makes the characterization and the picture. His in- 
sistent strategy stimulates our minds to visualize the largeness 
of his nature and strength of will, together with the con- 
spicuous career implied for the future, by way of the third 
circle, in this adolescent heroism. 

The secret of imaginative discernment does not in general 
reside so much in the exercise of will as in the moral con- 
sciousness that inspires and governs it. Intimations of moral 
quality instantly and intimately visualize the personality. 


One of the fishermen at a summer resort, while making 
obtrusive pretensions to wealth and social prominence, 
had spoken of rowing stroke for Yale on the winning crew 
of ’85, and of haunting almost all the chief streams of 
the country with rod and line. In his absence one day, this 
conversation occurred at dinner: 

“What do you think Turner has been vaporing about 
to-day ?” 

“Oh, of some other big ranch of his at Pasadena, or 
a yachting trip to Panama perhaps.” 

“When I spoke about catching bass in the Susquehanna, 
some years ago, he said he had fished over the whole length 
of it, down to the point where it falls into the Potomac.” 

“Oh, he did, did he? That shows, then, what he is.” 


That the fellow had not fished in the Susquehanna at the 
point where it falls into the Potomac was undoubted. Had 
he fished in it anywhere? No one of the company appeared to 
be thinking about that. All were absorbed, instead, in envisag- 
ing the fraudulent, unprincipled nature of the man. They 
were forming conclusions which amounted to conviction, and 
which were wholly sound. The man was proved a pretender, 
after a two weeks’ stay, by leaving behind some worthless 
checks, and a number of unpaid bills. 


170 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


The attempt to install the Susquehanna as a branch of the 
Potomac was evidently a typical action of this adventurer. 
Every one in the company accepted it as such unhesitatingly, 
as they could not otherwise, in good faith, have judged him 
by it. They assumed moral quality, instinctively—just as we 
assume it and all men assume it, as a norm, and they treated 
his case as a deviation from it. The word character carries 
no neutral connotation, but registers in itself the spiritual pre- 
sumption of the race. A man of character is a man of upright 
character. A man of principle is a man of sound principles, 
of standard ethics. We read the principles that show character 
by signs, which inspire imagination to visualize the character. 
We may then ¢all such signs Imaginative Appeals. 

We may note here that drawing character is a process similar 
to drawing an object, for the reader, by description, or to 
sketching a transaction for him by narration. To describe an 
object, we must have identified the recognized, standard ele- 
ments which compose it. We present to the reader such of 
these as are stimulating, and vital, and hold him to the task 
of combining and expanding them into an imaginative whole. 
To narrate a happening, we determine the standard or recog- 
nized modes of motion that help make it the individual thing it 
is. We indicate to the reader such of these as will engage his 
imagination to construct the whole. To draw a character, we 
discover typical, symptomatic actions, and exhibit some of 
these to the reader, as appeals to his imagination. From the 
motives or principles implied in these, he must be left to synthe- 
size and complete the nature or personality for himself. 

While the symptomatic actions that we notice and interpret 
seem numberless, they all belong to one or the other of two 
well-marked divisions of human character. One division com- 
prises traits or manifestations that belong to integrity, or moral 
soundness, or worth, or, of course, the opposites of these. The 
other division of personal qualities is distinguished by the name 
“beauty,” and sometimes “nobility,” of character. 

Some natures appear to us equally eminent in integrity and 
nobility of character. When a personality of this sort is dis- 
cerned, as in the career of a Lincoln, the general mind dis- 
tinguishes honesty of purpose from quickness of sympathy, 


CHARACTERIZATION 171 


and idealizes the possessor in both aspects. The world at large 
recognizes Byron, because he devoted himself to the liberation 
of Greece, as a generous spirit. But other acts of his are re- 
membered as arguing deficiencies in moral worth. It is not the 
critics more than the commoner sort of readers who have char- 
acterized Scott, from the Marmion and Ivanhoe that he wrote 
and the Abbotsford that he built, as a lover of chivalry and 
romance. But they have characterized him not less, from his 
attempt, at cost of health and life, to liquidate a debt not his, 
as sublimely true. We have all recognized Mark Twain, from 
a multitude of imaginative appeals, as an exponent of the 
unserious side of life. His successful effort and Scott’s losing 
struggle to atone for the mistakes of others characterize these 
authors, more potently than anything else ever told of either, 
as of the highest moral worth. 

In general, no final presentation of character will be effected 
when the sympathetic nature or the moral nature is suggested 
singly. Imaginative appeals from both sides of the personality 
should be looked for. The following characterization, from 
Voltaire’s Life of Moliére, is manifestly incomplete: 


It is perhaps to Moliére that France owes Racine. He 
engaged the young author, now leaving Port Royal at the 
age of nineteen, to write for the theater. Mboliére thus 
obtained from him the tragedy of Theagenes and Chari- 
clea, and although the piece was too feeble to be played, 
he made the author a present of a hundred louis [$113], 
and sketched out to him the plan of The Hostile Brothers. 
He advanced and trained another dependent, the comedian 
Baron. One day, Baron came in to announce that a player 
from the country, whom poverty prevented from coming 
in person, begged for assistance that would enable him 
to join his troupe. Moliére, on finding out that the man 
was a certain Mondorge, once his associate, asked Baron 
how much he thought the man should have. Baron an- 
swered, at a venture, “Four pistoles” [$16]. “Give him 
four pistoles for me,” said Moliére. “Then here are 
twenty more [$78] that I wish you to give him for your- 
self.” And he added to this gift a splendid costume. 
These are trivial actions; but they paint the character. 


Of course trivial actions, and actions not accounted trivial, 
do not in themselves “paint” character. They merely furnish 


172 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


means by which it may be painted, or visualized, if imagination 
wills. Whether imagination shall will or not will to visualize 
depends on the degree to which the given actions suit our 
ideals of nobility and worth. Acts which satisfy our ideals 
are never trivial. In the present case, the generosity which 
prompted the actions of Moliere answers closely to our ideal, 
and inspires imagination—which is a name of the soul in its 
constructive activities—to realize the character and the scene 
pictorially. 

When the personality offered for treatment does not appeal 
to our ideals in some degree, we are apt to present it by what 
is called description of character. This is a partial summary 
of traits, in abstract statements, such as, “He is scholarly,” 
“She has the artistic temperament,” “He is heavy-witted,”’ or 
“a genius,” or “a man of quick decision,” and the like. The © 
process is analytical, and does not generally engage imagination 
to combine the parts. But the taste of present times is satisfied 
with nothing short of characterization proper, which is an 
important feature of visual writing. Imaginative appeals 
always envisage the personality. The following will serve as 
an example of character presented by description, or analytical 
mention of traits: 


In personal appearance Ibrahim Pasha was a short, 
broad-shouldered man, with a red face, small eyes, and 
a heavy though cunning expression of countenance. He 
was as brave as a lion; his habits and ideas were rough 
and coarse; he had but little refinement in his composition; 
but, although I have often seen him abused for his cruelty 
in European newspapers, I never heard any well-authen- 
ticated anecdote of his cruelty, and do not believe that 
he was by any means of a savage disposition, nor that 
his troops rivalled in any way the horrors committed in 
Algeria by the civilized and fraternizing French. He 
was a bold, determined soldier. 


While an inventorying summary like this befits the subject, 
for Anglo-Saxon readers, it would scarcely have been satisfy- 
ing as means of presenting an American or British officer of 
equal prestige and force. We should have missed the per- 
sonalizing effect of “anecdotes” as imaginative appeals. Simi- 


v 


CHARACTERIZATION 173 


larly, no countryman of Ibrahim Pasha, writing with native 
appreciation, would probably have been content to treat this 
martial character without some mention of visualizing action 
to signalize his strategy and daring. 

We may sketch the character of a class, as well as of an in- 
dividual, by “effects given,” or imaginative appeals. Bazin, in 
The Coming Harvest, thus presents groups of young country 
folk who have come to a French market-place in search of 
employment for the season: 


“The young men who desired positions as carters had 
a whip suspended about the neck. Those expecting to 
be field laborers were biting a green leaf, or wearing one 
in their hats. The girls held a rose in their hand. They 
were dressed as for work, in their shabbiest gowns, to pre- 
vent their prospective mistresses from judging them likely 
to be wasteful. 


Similarly we may characterize any group of persons—as a 
roomful of pupils, a military company, a band of musicians, or 
a mob—by some manifestation in which all feel and act as 
one. It is our habit to think of porters, cabmen, conductors, 
the police, firemen, waiters, and like social divisions as sets 
of people rather than individuals. We frequently look upon 
doctors, lawyers, and members of other professions as dis- 
tinguished rather by their calling than by personal traits. We 
sometimes criticize their actions as professional, that is, as 
typical respectively of their class and not their personality. 
Class characterization is often in consequence whimsical or 
satirical, and but loosely related to the concerns of life. 

On the other hand, the reading of character and the drawing 
of character in individuals is one of the most responsible of 
human accomplishments. All members of society are weighed 
and esteemed, in their respective circles, by signs or “‘effects 
given,” real or pretended, visual or inner. Thus is it that all 
domestic, social, and business relations are dependent funda- 
mentally upon mutual and correct discernment of character 
by the persons variously brought into association with each 
other. 


174 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


EXERCISES 


1. Recall two or more persons whose natures severally you 
have discerned through the medium of non-visualizing actions. 
Try whether you can effectively present the character of either 
by the means that first disclosed the character. 

2. Make another presentation of the same character by use of 
a visualizing action of some kind. Add a paragraph of discus- 
sion comparing the strength and other merits of the two studies. 

3. From good periodical or other literature at hand, report 
examples of characterization effected by non-visualizing action. 

4. Select some personage that you know familiarly, and analyze 
the character with reference to traits of genuineness or worth 
and of nobleness. Select imaginative appeals answering to these 
divisions, and draw the character. 

5. From current magazine short-stories or other fiction, find 
characterization similar, illustrating either worth or beauty of 
character, or both. 

6. Report examples of characterization based upon traits of 
nobility alone. 

7. Present the character of Washington by enumeration of 
traits, as in the example dealing (p. 172) with Ibrahim Pasha, 
making the paragraphs as definite and vivid as possible. 

8. Rewrite the exercise, using typical and visualizing actions. 
Add a paragraph of discussion and criticism, to show principles 
illustrated. 

9g. Characterize, by typical actions, your horse or dog, or other 
pet. 

10. Effect the class characterization of an effeminate youth, as 
by his manner of holding or carrying school books, or by some 
like visualizing means. 


CHAPTER XVIII 
CHARACTERIZATION IN DEGREE 


NDIVIDUAL strength engages imagination not less than 

new types of personality. We often find ourselves in con- 
sequence reading character and also drawing it in degree 
rather than in kind. 

There are two kinds of typical actions, clearly distinguishable 
by the purpose for which they are respectively employed. 
When we say of any one, “He is this sort of person,” and 
follow with the report of an action that shows his character, 
it is evident that both the act and the characterization are of 
kind. But if we hear the remark, “He never repeats anything 
that you fail to understand. He always speaks deliberately and 
plainly, but says a thing once only,” we each recognize sub- 
consciously that the fact is told to make us realize the extent 
to which the quality of self-assertion is developed in the man. 
The typical action is now manifestly of the second or degree 
sort. 

Characterizations of kind serve the purpose of putting in- 
dividual persons into their proper class. An action inspired 
by stinginess makes us assign the doer to the class of stingy 
people. An observed act of civility makes us visualize the per- 
son performing it as in the class of gentlemen or gentlewomen. 
But characterizations of degree for a given class show the 
extent to which the classifying trait controls the nature of the 
men or women respectively considered or concerned as indi- 
viduals. 

A prominent jeweler in a certain city had the habit of locking 
up the butter from his wife and servants, after doling it out 
each morning for the day. The fact was told by a fellow 
tradesman to make his hearer realize the length to which this 
man would go in carrying out the principle of stinginess in 
his disposition. A well-groomed young man was seen to step 


into the gutter of a North-End street in Boston, to help an 
175 


176 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


Italian woman, a rag-picker, adjust an overfilled bag to her 
shoulder. It was noted that, as he withdrew, he lifted to her 
his faultless silk hat as if she had been the first lady in the 
land. Persons witnessing the incident never lost it out of 
mind, but boasted of it years after as actualizing an ideal of 
breeding and culture, and evincing gentlemanliness carried to 
the limit in degree. 

If we watch the working of our minds, we shall discover 
that we make a clear distinction between typical acts of the 
two classes. Personality discerned in degree affects us very 
differently from personality discerned in kind. New types of 
individuality excite interest, but phenomenal gifts or feats 
arouse enthusiasm. From childhood we have been quick to 
note droll manners and have often sketched, or longed to 
sketch, various queer folk met with. Each one of us has his 
own gallery of singularities. Lively pictures, as of the old 
Quaker farmer, with broad-brimmed hat crowning his long 
white hair, as he rode with whip held erect and high past our 
country home, or of the spectacled school-dame, gaunt with 
unrelenting energy, come back to mind unsought. From later 
years, the stooping figure of the college president who always 
pronounced knowledge with the long sound of “o,” and the 
arrowy stature of the ambitious rector whose sion hair was 
always shaved an inch back of his forehead, stand out vivid 
in our thought. In certain moments of relaxation, we muse 
over the strongly marked types of men and women that rise 
before us from days long past. 

But while unconventional people attract us, through dif- 
ferences of kind, larger and more lasting satisfactions come 
to us from even common qualities ene in greatness of 
degree. Nothing stirs imagination more deeply than sov- 
ereignty of nature. Heine, himself a genius, taxes credulity in 
his report (Florentine Nights) of Paganini’s playing. Mo- 
zart’s seeming mastery of music at the age of six takes rank 
with the marvels of romance. In the biography of John Wil- 
son of Edinburgh, we are at once entranced by the intense 
temperament and strange powers of will displayed almost in 
infant years. “He was but three years old when he rambled 
off one day, armed with a willow wand, duly furnished with 


CHARACTERIZATION IN DEGREE 177 


a crooked pin, to fish in a ‘wee burnie,’ of which he had taken 
note, away a good mile from home. Unknown to any one, 
already appreciating the fascination of an undisturbed and 
solitary ‘cast,’ the blue-eyed and golden-haired adventurer 
sallied forth to the water side, to spend a day of unforgotten 
delight, lashing away at the rippling stream.” Once of a morn- 
ing, now the famous Professor of Moral Philosophy, Wilson 
had gone out on the hills, where the clearness of the sunshine 
and the crispness of the air so inspirited him that he threw 
his hat to the winds, leaped over a boulder, and ran at top 
speed a dozen miles before the heat of his ecstasy was spent. 
One night in London, during student years, having found it 
necessary to chastize an insolent cabby, he set out on foot, to 
avoid arrest, in his dinner clothes, and covered the whole 
distance to Oxford, some sixty miles, and arrived as the col- 
lege gates were opened at five o’clock. “That slender youth, 
so tidily dressed in his top-boots and well-fitting coat, with 
face so placid, and blue eyes so mild, looking as if he never 
could do or say anything ouwtre or startling, can that be a pic- 
ture of him we have seen and heard as the long-maned and 
mighty, whose eyes were ‘as lightnings of fiery flame,’ and his 
voice like an organ bass; who laid about him, when the fit 
was on, like a Titan, breaking small men’s bones?” At Mag- 
dalen he held, in 1803, the record for the long jump, “doing 
twenty-three feet on a dead level, with a run and a leap on 
a slightly inclined plane, perhaps an inch to a yard.” This 
was the future maker of the Noctes, and the Lights and Shad- 
ows of Scottish Life, who was to turn out prodigies of copy, 
and win for Blackwood what seems after the lapse of a century 
a lasting prestige. 

At times, then, it is degree alone of quality that counts with 
us. We care little for a game or a drama played with mere 
correctness in kind. We brand it as mediocre, or as lacking 
in degree of merit. It is the batting average, or the number 
of men that the pitcher strikes out, or the ability of the cap- 
tain to break the line, that gives value to the performer and 
his work. It is the eminence with which Bernhardt and Irving 
impersonate their parts, and not their typically respectable 
stage work, that draws the public in hordes to the box-office. 


178 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


Similarly, there are forms of personality in which quality is 
taken for granted, and only greatness of it is considered. 

So, while there are many sorts and conditions of people that 
must be drawn with reference to kind, there are some who 
must be presented with reference to force of character. We 
know at sight, in outside life, whether a given subject is re- 
markable for peculiarities or for power, and we shape our oral 
characterizations accordingly. Authors determine similarly, 
by instinct, whether a character is to be presented to imagina- 
tion by distinctive traits, or by the singular degree of some 
quality which it shares with others. 

Hopkinson Smith’s Captain Joe is a good example of char- 
acterization effected, not by unusual traits, but by strength of 
personality. Professor Blaisdell (Composition-Rhetoric, pp. 
19, 20) summarizes thus the incidents, all of them actual, which 
the author uses: 


On a morning when the North River is full of floating 
ice a tug plows a great furrow in the hull of a crowded 
ferryboat. The boat being helpless because of paddles 
choked with ice, the danger is increased a hundred fold. 
Captain Joe, seeing the accident from his own forward 
deck, runs his tug up to the side of the ferryboat and leaps 
into the crush of white-faced women, shrieking children, 
cursing men, and crazy, struggling horses. Driving the 
frightened crowd to the side opposite the ragged hole, 
he vows that he will throw overboard the first man that 
stirs, and runs for the engine-room. He meets the en- 
gineer halfway up the ladder, compels him to return, and 
immediately begins to pile mattresses, blankets, clothing, 
cotton waste, bits of carpet, everything, into the splintered 
gap left by the tug’s cutwater. But all available material 
has been used and the water is still pouring in. Running 
his eye searchingly about the engine-room and finding 
nothing, he deliberately thrusts his body into the yawning 
breach, holding himself steady with one arm outside, 
where the water freezes it and the floating ice gnaws off 
the flesh. An hour later the boat is safe in her slip, and 
a surgeon is caring for the unconscious man. Finally, 
the color creeps back to his cheeks, the eyes half open, 
and the surgeon catches the whisper, “Wuz any of them 
babies hurt ?” 

On a Sunday months afterwards Captain Joe is impor- 
tuned to tell of this experience. “He would, but he’s most 


CHARACTERIZATION IN DEGREE 179 


forgot. So many of these things turnin’ up when a man’s 
bangin’ round, it’s hard to keep track on ’em. He wuz 
workin’ on the Reliance at the time, and come to think on 
it, he’d found her log last week in his old sea-chest when 
he wuz huntin’ some rubber cloth to patch his divin’ suit. 
He guessed the story wuz all there.” The book is found. 
Turning the grimy pages with his thole-pin of a finger, 
he at last finds the entry. And what is it? 

“January 30—Left Jersey City 7 A.M. Ice running 
heavy. Captain Joe stopped leak in ferryboat.” 


There were probably a hundred intelligent, brave, able-bodied 
men on the ferryboat when she was struck. None of them all, 
officers, passengers, or crew, saw any chance to escape. Cap- 
tain Joe leaps aboard because he sees a chance, and has con- 
ceived a plan. How is he first characterized to us? Evidently 
by superiority of discernment, of resourcefulness. By what 
right or warrant does he board the craft, and coerce the master 
and the engineer, as well as the crowd, to obey his orders? 
Clearly by sovereignty of will and insight. So he is character- 
ized now by a force that makes him king for the moment, since 
no one as yet thinks of him as a deliverer. Why does he place 
his own body in the breach? We read the answer in his 
whisper to the surgeon. It was to save the company, and 
especially the wondering, frightened babies in their mothers’ 
arms. Thus he is characterized again by his tenderness for 
children, and his forgetfulness of his own safety. Why did 
he make light of his deed? Was it pride, or modesty? Was 
it not rather a larger manliness, which counted an act that he 
could repeat indefinitely as too paltry to be discussed? So he 
is characterized lastly by his inability to take his performance 
or even his suffering seriously. 

Captain Joe has very properly been made what we call the 
“hero” of a story, because he is a hero in will and nature. A 
hero is a person who with high purpose achieves or attempts 
to achieve an ideal, a consummate feat. The goal of this hero’s 
endeavor was the saving of perhaps three hundred lives. He 
attained it, and at cost of what would have been death to a 
man of ordinary endurance and strength. 

The imaginative appeals that make us acquainted with Cap- 
tain Joe are thus of nobility as well as worth. That he should 


180 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


have set his single strength against the forces of nature, with- 
out stopping to count the cost, is not less than sublime. His 
anxiety for the children, which seems not to have given way 
even in his unconscious moments, shows singular beauty of 
character. These appeals make us recognize the nature of the 
man in its superiorities, and are therefore of degree. The 
diagram employed in Chapter XVI (p. 161), for characteriza- 
tions of kind, will need to be changed but little to illustrate 
imaginative appeals of the new sort: The actions given us 


IMAGINATIVE 


CHARACTER 
DISCERNED. 


SPHERE OF IMAGINA- 
TION AND THE INTEL- 
LECTUAL LIFE 


MATERIAL SPHERE OF 
THE SENSES AND THE 
PHYSICAL LIFE 





by the author’s treatment make us conceive, by a backward, 
realizing inference, the mastery shown by Captain Joe in in- 
sight, will, sympathy, and manliness, as their cause. Then we 
are stimulated to frame the forward or synthetic inference, and 
to visualize idealizingly the personality. 

It is evident that we are each endowed with senses that 
take cognizance of sublime and beautiful qualities in man as 
well as in outside nature. Otherwise, we should not be aware 
of such distinctions as are here implied. These senses or ap- 
petencies, which we call in sum the soul, are not senses merely. 
They not only recognize, when beauty is present, that its de- 
gree is high or low, but demand that it shall be high. The 
same is true in our experiences of the sublime. When the 
degree of sublimity or beauty discovered in qualities of char- 
acter is high, enthusiasm is aroused. When the degree is as 
high as we can well conceive, we idealize the possessor, as we 
here idealize Captain Joe, and as all the world idealizes Lincoln. 


CHARACTERIZATION IN DEGREE 181 


Imaginative appeals of degree are requisite for the idealization 
of any character. 

The general fondness for such degrees of noble and sublime 
quality as amount to heroism, largely govern in the making of 
imaginative literature. In fiction of the sensational sort, ex- 
travagant if not impossible exploits are invented to kindle the 
untutored imagination. In books of standard merit, extraor- 
dinary achievements are generally introduced, sooner or later, 
to exalt the principal character or characters. 

In The Fugitive Blacksmith, “Bill” climbs the flagstaff by a 
surprising device of three wire rings. In Evan Harrington, 
Meredith makes the title character approve himself to the 
heroine and to us by leaping overboard and rescuing a drunken 
sailor. The Countess of Cresset, in The Amazing Marriage, 
“was a wonderful swimmer, among other things, and one early 
morning, when she was a girl, she did really swim, they say, 
across the Shannon and back to win a bet for her brother Lord 
Levellier.” And this same countess is used to present the first 
hero of the story, by relating “the well-known tale of Captain 
Kirby and the shipful of mutineers; and how when not a man 
of them stood by him, and he in the service of the first in- 
surgent state of Spanish America, to save his ship from being 
taken over by the enemy, he blew her up, fifteen miles from 
land: and so got to shore swimming and floating alternately, 
and was called Old Sky High by English sailors, any number 
of whom could always be had to sail under Buccaneer Kirby.” 

Among the innumerable examples of characterization by de- 
gree, in good literature, many appear too striking to be real. 
This is partly due to difference of perspective. Read with lit- 
erary expectation, the work of a life-saving crew may seem 
Herculean, but, received as news, may fail to engage imagina- 
tion. The unnoted heroisms of life are more numerous and 
moving than the heroisms of romance. There is little in fiction 
more remarkable than reports, such as the following, which 
we read almost daily, and without much feeling, in the papers: 


Los ANGELES, CAL., July 31.—Determined that he would 
not be separated from his wife, who is a leper and has 
been confined at the County Hospital, Brigadier General 
David K. Wardwell, retired, veteran of two wars, has 


182 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


stolen her from the institution and rushed her across the 
Mexican border, where he declares he will live with her 
until death separates them. 

No attempt will be made to bring them back, as the of- 
ficials say they both threatened to end their lives if forced 
to live apart. 


Every community has its own heroic figures, which it char- 
acterizes by narrating feats of strength, or daring, or endurance. 
Most of these stalwart natures drop from memory, as gen- 
erations pass, and leave no influence. The visitor who looks 
in from the great world outside is often surprised at the rare- 
ness and worth of these ungathered types. In some sleepy 
village he will hear the incident of the church-raising, of which 
Major Dudley is the hero. A part of the vast frame proving 
too unwieldy for the group of men assigned to handle it, the 
impatient leader orders everybody aside and lifts it into posi- 
tion without help. Or, it is perhaps a seaboard town, where 
our reported visitor chances to be a guest on the morning that 
Captain Cushing, of the coasting service, came in after the 
Stonington, on which he had taken passage, went down off the 
Cornfields. He had helped women into the boats until the 
ship began to lurch, when, wrenching a chair from the deck, 
he dropped overboard and floated with it till he worked himself 
ashore. The children of the home in which he told his story 
stood in wonder before him all day long. Again, in the country, 
our visitor will hear of the Puritan mother, whose summons 
brought her daughter posthaste from school, riding on horse- 
back behind her teacher. As she burst into the house with 
impassioned inquiry, on the assumption that some one was dead 
or mortally stricken, she was answered with only the stern 
mandate, “Put that broom back in its place.” 

Persons of strong or intense natures must evidently be char- 
acterized by means of the intensity or the strength. Eccentric 
people, not remarkable for largeness of personality, must be 
presented by appropriate appeals of kind. Sometimes we have 
occasion to show the smallness or feebleness of a given nature. 
Here also the problem is of degree, but in minus instead of 
plus denominations. The ideal of the defective brain is as much 
lower as the ideal of the heroic mind is higher than common 


CHARACTERIZATION IN DEGREE 183 


standards. Characterization by mimicry of lisps, or slips of 
speech, or “bulls,” is of this sort. On the other hand, by ex- 
aggeration of proper degree appeals, caricature is effected. 
Moliére, to burlesque the title character in The Miser (II. v) 
merely makes him say, “I lend you,” instead of, “I give you, 
good day.” 

We should not fail to realize, in this part of our work, that, 
in spite of the importance, to each of us, of reading and draw- 
ing character correctly, we are not much helped by our teachers 
or others to acquire or improve the processes of either in any 
way. Largely in consequence of this, many English pupils as 
well as other people look on character as so hedged up and 
overlaid as to be past finding out. Every such person should 
ponder well the contrary truth, that even those who suppress 
or falsify the marks of personality cannot escape eventual be- 
trayal of their natures. Some folk divine such concealments 
from the first, and avoid the sorrows of misplaced confidence. 
School training in life and literature should enable all learners 
to read with readiness the secrets of character, which are really 
open to all the world. 


EXERCISES 


1. Draw a character by use of imaginative appeals of degree. 

2. Draw a character by such imaginative appeals as_ shall 
idealize it. 

3. Report three examples, which you have chanced to hear or 
overhear, of oral characterization by degree. 

4. Find two good examples, in current fiction, of characteriza- 
tion in degree. Discuss these and compare with the oral instances 
reported in Exercise 3 above. 

5. Narrate the more considerable incidents in a recent trip or 
outing, and with these introduce visually some of the people met 
with. Of these, determine which should be presented by imagi- 
native appeals of kind, and which by imaginative appeals of degree. 
Draw and introduce these respective characters, using short, 
vigorous paragraphs of dialogue, at appropriate points in the narra- 
tion. 

6. Read the opening chapters of John Muir’s Boyhood and 
Youth, and show how the narrative is built upon imaginative 
appeals of character in degree. 


184 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


7, Determine whether you should characterize Tennyson as 
poet and man, to those unacquainted with his work, by imaginative 
appeals of kind, or of degree. Make the study as suggested, and 
determine whether you can justify the steps and means. 

8. Treat similarly the work and character of Longfellow. 

9. Describe, from cut in dictionary, the stringed instrument 
called kit, or pochette. 

10. Read the last thirteen paragraphs of Chapter XIV in The 
Mystery of Edwin Drood and discuss the merits of the narration 
and description. 

11. A landlady once left on the bureau of her lodger this note: 
“Too many matches are used in this room. I put here ten matches, 
which will be the number allotted for the week.” 

Did the lady who told this incident of her neighbor intend 
characterization in kind or in degree? Explain. 

12. Show what characters, at the opening of Dickens’s Tale 
of Two Cities are presented by imaginative appeals of degree. 

13. Show what is the effect, and what Lockhart probably in- 
tended should be the effect, of this passage in his Life (1. 66) of 
Scott: 


Sir Walter communicated that his mother, and many 
others of Mrs. Sinclair’s pupils, were sent afterwards to 
be finished off by the Honorable Mrs. Ogilvie, a lady who 
trained her young friends to a style of manners which 
would now be considered intolerably stiff. Such was the 
effect of this early training upon the mind of Mrs. Scott, 
that even when she approached her eightieth year, she 
took as much care to avoid touching her chair with her 
back as if she had still been under the stern eye of Mrs. 
Ogilvie. 


14. Recall a good example of oral caricature, at the expense of 
some one known to you, and explain its manner and occasion. 

15. Select a good example of what is called “a character,” 
from among people that you have met, and show, by a plan or 
outline, how the personality could be put to use in a short story. 

16. Alter the plan of the story just outlined by introducing 
another personage remarkable for force of character. Write out 
a first draft of the amended plot, and use it as a study in revision. 


CHAPTER XIX 
INDIRECT CHARACTERIZATION 


OMETIMES authors present noble and worthy personages 
misleadingly, as the first step in characterization, in order 
to ensure for them better eventual appreciation from the reader. 
Many people lack the art of making a good impression, and 
at first repel those who afterwards become tkeir stanchest 
friends. Some peculiarity in appearance or manner is inter- 
preted as typical, and occasions a wrong conception of the 
personality. Lincoln, in comparison with Everett and Seward, 
seemed boorish and incapable. Grant was considered indolent, 
and irresolute, and failed in every business venture. Marshall 
Field is spoken of as having served his apprenticeship as clerk 
in a country store, and been pronounced by his employer wholly 
unfitted for the career of a tradesman. 

In many cases of this kind, it is safe and wise to present the 
character in hand positively, by direct imaginative appeals, and 
compel the most favorable conception possible of the person- 
ality. All the world knows that faults will be found in every 
nature. Let these come out, when they must, after the char- 
acter has been grasped in essential traits. The leading pulpit 
orator of the last century should be characterized by his un- 
usual brilliancy and strength, and afterwards the fact that he 
defended the use of a knife in lieu of fork at table may be 
conceded, if it must be told, without much risk of overthrow- 
ing the eminence of the man. 

But the sympathies of people are so fickle and illogical that 
it is sometimes unsafe to employ the method of positive or 
direct appeals. Some fault or weakness may be discovered in 
a wrong perspective, and the whole character thrown into per- 
manent distortion. A young man, supposed of consummate 
breeding, lost the respect of his circle because he was seen to 
moisten his thumb in turning the leaves of a costly book. As 


a matter of fact, the movement was due wholly to embarrass- 
185 


186 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


ment, and was recognized upon the instant by the doer as 
an act that belied his nature. But it was interpreted by his 
friends as a betrayal of his actual tastes and rearing, and as 
proof that he was no better than a pretender. So imagination 
in correcting its first conceptions of his character, now thought 
false, went far in its reaction beyond the proper point in a 
contrary estimation of his worth. This is its usual behavior in 
such cases. : 

Action and reaction, outside the sphere of physics, are never 
equal. In matters involving imagination, reaction may be 
vastly greater. Illustrations are numberless, and may be con- 
stantly observed. The story of the countess whose salon de- 
serted her, is a drastic instance. The home of this lady was 
a center of wit and fashion. To her accomplishments were 
added rare beauty and fascinating manners. All the world 
admired and worshipped. But, at a brilliant function, she was 
detected wearing a purloined and altered necklace, and was 
later proved to have been, from early years, what was called 
in charity a kleptomaniac. 

The circle which melted away had lifted her, in imagina- 

Cc D 


co RE ESB LT ET ES ES EE 


H 


tion, to the highest plane (cD) of refinement, far above the 
level (AB) of their own living. They now, from the new imagi- 
native appeal, lowered their conception of her nature to the 


INDIRECT CHARACTERIZATION 187 


standard (cp) of such as live without ideals. This was in- 
evitable and just. But they did not stop with that. They 
visualized her as in fact degraded to the rank (EF) of depravity 
and even brutishness. 

Here the line GH, between CD and EF, represents the excess 
of reaction over the normal action of imagination. It is legiti- 


€ H P 
NTE IES RE TE ES SEE AS TE 
PLANE OF IDEALIZATION 


Le] 


c G 
INTELLECTUAL LIFE 


PLANE OF COMMON LIFE 


™ 
= 
ma 


mate to utilize this reactional element, provided the eventual 
notion is not unduly idealized or degraded. 

It is sometimes difficult to forestall even farcical exaggera- 
tions, when imagination by accident or design has been mis- 
led, in correcting conceptions of character. A young lady of 
social prominence, in an Eastern city, scandalized her circle 
by marrying the family chauffeur. Intimate friends of this lady, 


188 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


who was accomplished, and had seemed of exclusive and 
artistic tastes, maintained stoutly that she had been hypnotized ; 
and the chauffeur, in common opinion, was regarded as little 
better than a criminal. 

Here, the popular imagination, which had envisaged the con- 
sciousness of the young lady as belonging to a plane (cD) 
above the grade (AB) of common living, reduced its estimate 
of her character not only to the level (cD) of folk devoid of 
self-respect, but as low as to the rank (EF) of the perverse and 
even profligate. 

Thus far the example is not different, psychologically, from 
the preceding. But it turned out that the chauffeur was of as 
good family as his employer’s, was possessed of gifts amounting 
to genius as a painter, and had come to the city to acquire 
means of prosecuting his studies, and of gaining access in un- 
employed periods to the collections and galleries of art. These 
facts had been discovered accidentally by the young lady, who 
encouraged his bent, and, after assuring herself of his abilities, 
made proffer, being an heiress in her own right, of money 
sufficient to complete his training. This assistance, however, 
the artist had been too proud to accept. The opposition of 
the family to their daughter’s interest in a chauffeur was fore- 
known, and brought the issue of her marrying the man of 
talents, and repairing with him to Paris, where he quickly won 
distinction. The young husband was now more esteemed by 
the family and lionized by their circle than if he had been a 
notable suitor from the first. His bride was approved as having 
made a wise and noble choice, and their union seemed invested 
ever after with a halo of romance. This means simply that 
the popular imagination not only restored her to the plane (cD) 
of the intellectual life, but also exalted her, as also her lover, 
to the level (EF) of idealization. 

This is a matter that invites study. All of us are liable to 
similarly extreme shifts of sentiment and opinion. Evidently 
the proper range of imaginative inference would have been 
from CD to CD, along the line Gc, and back again. The nature 
of the lady remained, throughout the affair, unaltered. What 
was changed was only the public judgment and conception of 
it. Her unconventional and daring conduct was considered 


INDIRECT CHARACTERIZATION 189 


due, as experience had shown such conduct is well nigh always 
due, to giddiness and lack of self-respect. If the lady’s action 
had not had the warrant of rare insight, the outcome would 
have been disastrous. But she saw true, and had force of char- 
acter enough to keep her lover’s respect, and to inspire him to 
his best efforts. Because the public found itself befooled, now 
discovering strength where it had inferred there was only 
weakness, it gave up trying to form an exact judgment, and 
took on faith, blindly, not the whole behavior but the whole 
character as well. It gave her back not only what it had taken 
from her, but credited her with every sort of excellence imagi- 
nable, and invested her, for degree, with sovereignty of nature, 
out of which heroisms are bred. The extent of spiritualization 
may be represented in thought by the line cu. 

Instances farther removed from the glamour of art and 
social prestige may be helpfully considered. A young pro- 
fessor of surgery was summoned from his lecture-hall and hur- 
ried away by special train, to save the life of a man, hurt by 
an explosion, in a neighboring city. Operatives and their 
families, at least two thousand men and women, were massed 
bareheaded in front of the manufactory, on his arrival. Under 
the shadow of trees without, the surgeon stopped and examined 
the injuries of the unconscious man. Rising, after a moment 
of inspection, he astonished everybody by inquiring, “Who pays 
for this service?” The crowd hissed and howled, but he sternly 
refused to proceed until his fee, one hundred dollars, was paid 
into his hands. After the intricate dressing of the wounds was 
finished, the professor of surgery handed the money over to 
a responsible bystander, explaining that he had despaired of 
success from the first except with the aid of expert nursing, 
and that, fearing neglect after the outburst of sympathy had 
spent itself, he had felt it necessary to exact on the spot a con- 
tribution large enough to carry the patient jthrough. When 
the crowd knew that the physician had gone back to his train 
without the money, they no longer wished to mob him for 
what they had supposed was his shameless greed. But they 
did not stop with restoring him to the place he had held, before 
the incident, in their thought. He was then only the first sur- 
geon in the state. He was now, to them, an epic figure, an 


199 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


object of reverence and wonder, and associated in their minds 
with the heroes of romance. Those of them who are still 
living are not done with the story, after fifty years, of the Yale 
professor who cowed and duped an angry mob, and raised a 
purse for the hurt mill-hand. 

Even this is hardly a fair illustration of what happens when 
we attempt, unadvisedly, to mend the mistakes of imagination. 
The most cultivated and conservative people behave thus in 
no respect more wisely than factory crowds. When Dwight 
L. Moody received his invitation to visit a certain Eastern 
city, he was bitterly opposed by prominent members of an old 
historic church, chief in wealth and influence in it and in the 
state. They protested publicly against the scandal of dignifying 
with the slightest recognition a man so blatantly vulgar and 
illiterate as they believed he was. Yet when Mr. Moody came, 
they did not refrain from going out to see and hear, and con- 
firm their prejudices. But the imaginative inference that they 
had drawn concerning him turned out to be wrong. In at- 
tempting to revise it they lost their heads. The ladies of their 
circle, who were never seen in public places except under the 
most select and distinguished auspices, spent the greater part 
of their time at the meetings. They brought lunches to the 
afternoon gatherings, and stayed over, in order to be sure of 
good seats for the evening service, in the rough, unpainted 
building. Their husbands, whose doors were scrupulously shut 
against parvenus and other folk not of their circle, pestered 
the man with absurd attentions. They forced him to leave his 
hotel, and make his stay in one of their patrician houses. They 
persisted in having the family coach of some member call for 
him and leave him at the tabernacle doors, in spite of the fact 
that he wished to walk for exercise. The thing was the talk 
of the town, the wonder of the elect and the profane together. 
They importuned him to take up his residence in their city, 
and offered to endow some one of their institutions with a 
foundation to that end. On his evasive explanation that he 
preferred retiring eventually to some farm, they proposed im- 
mediately and insistently that he should accompany them on 
a tour of the environs, to select the land. In discussing at a 
church service, a little later, the characteristics of the man, it 


INDIRECT CHARACTERIZATION 191 


was explained that his much-decried illiteracy was really con- 
fined to the use of singular verbs with plural subjects, and the 
substitution of “done” for “did,” with occasionally a double 
negative. “But these things,” the cultured spokesman was ap- 
proved in saying, “we didn’t mind at all, for in fact we found 
the flavor that they lent to his style delightful.” These domi- 
nators, it must be borne in mind, were not new-fledged men 
of affairs, but sons and grandsons of founders of great busi- 
ness houses, liberally educated, much-traveled, connoisseurs in 
art, and sticklers for the most stereotyped and exclusive social 
forms. Had Moody come into their knowledge in any ordinary 
way, he would have been excluded, as a matter of course, from 
the pulpit of their “ancient church.” Moreover, his illiteracy 
of the double negative, of “done” for “did,” and of plural 
construction with singular verbs, would not have seemed dif- 
ferent from anybody’s illiteracy, and in no case could have 
been looked upon in the light of an almost covetable accom- 
plishment or elegance of speech. 

In the instances now considered, the whole conduct of imagi- 
nation was undirected and undesigned. None of the persons 
concerned foresaw in any case the issue, or was in the least 
aware that a reversal of sentiment was possible. Yet the law 
of imaginative reaction is constantly used, in outside life, with 
intention and knowledge, and out of such instances the mode 
has made its way upward into literary art. It is a trick of 
singers, of a certain class, to fumble at a high or low note well 
within their range, thus making their audiences believe that 
they cannot attain it, only to take it with clearness and cer- 
titude at the close. Unprincipled platform speakers, after elab- 
orating their efforts, often feign lack of preparation, from the 
desire to seem possessed of supreme abilities. Persons in- 
sensible to the risk, sometimes make grievous trouble by arous- 
ing, in the minds of friends or others, too high expectations 
of strangers before acquaintance with them is possible. Gough 
tells somewhere how he was presented to his first London 
audience, by a blunderer of this kind, as the greatest orator 
of the times. Realizing what would become of his reputation 
if he tried to fulfill the promise of the moderator, Gough ad- 
vanced to the front of the stage, stammered, spoke broken 


192 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


sentences, patched them, descended to twaddle, and grew even 
in that obscure. In a few minutes he had succeeded in en- 
forcing the inference that he was a thorough-going American 
humbug. When he had made every one begin to realize what 
an hour and a half of that sort of entertainment was sure to 
mean, he proceeded to reform his style and manner, and dis- 
abuse his victims. He soon made them synthesize over again, 
and to contrary effect, his abilities as an orator, and at the end 
carried the audience by storm. He so far achieved his pur- 
pose as to send the major part of his hearers away persuaded 
that the assertion with which his lecture was prefaced was 
but a dispassionate and conservative judgment after all. Had 
Gough been introduced in the usual manner, he would have 
been estimated by the standards of his class. As it was, he man- 
aged to get himself judged by a standard vastly lower,—the 
standard in fact of failure. Not ineptly has the mother wit of 
the race proposed to call the outcome in such cases an “agree- 
able disappointment.” 

Imaginative reactions are often utilized, in common life, 
with more permanent effect. The success of the young rail- 
road agent, who aspired to the hand of a brilliant and high- 
bred authoress, is a notable illustration. Amused at her im- 
perious manner and the disdain with which she regarded the 
young men of the mountain village, her summer home, he de- 
vised a stratagem and bided the time when she should enter 
the supply store which, with other departments of the com- 
pany’s affairs, was under his general control. Seizing the 
chance to attend upon her by displacing the clerk in waiting 
he ironically ridiculed her pretensions, representing himself as 
having made, while serving a term in the penitentiary, the ar- 
ticle of dress which she had come to purchase. Within a 
month, to the astonishment of everybody, she married him. 
Men of superior gifts, and including an author of national 
fame, had not succeeded in becoming suitors. A born social 
leader, fit to grace any mansion in the land, and aspiring to 
position equal to the highest, she was content to live obscurely, 
and ever looked upon her husband as the most remarkable of 
living men. And she was wrong only in degree. Unschooled 
in the lore of books, he yet knew human values and the laws 


INDIRECT CHARACTERIZATION 193 


of the mind. His only chance lay, as he had divined, in letting 
the proud lady see that he was not of those, on the plane AaB 
of our diagram, who accepted her notion of her own impor- 
tance, and also in making her judge herself by the standards 
of one whom she instantly invested with the halo of a master. 
No later manifestation of his nature gave this artistic and 
exacting wife occasion to reduce the largeness (GH) of her 
idealization. 

The mode of imaginative reaction may be called, in con- 
trast with the direct method of the last chapters, the Indirect 
Manner. We will consider some examples of it, under this 
name, in literary forms. Because Shakespeare understood 
human values and the laws of the mind better than any known 
man besides, he has effected by it clearer and more compelling 
characterizations than any other author. He makes Iago and 
Roderigo, at the opening of Othello, represent the title char- 
acter as black, thick-lipped, and old, and as belonging to the 
class of low adventurers. With this Moor of alien and doubt- 
ful history a patrician lady from one of the richest palaces in 
Venice has eloped. We do not care to become acquainted with 
people who manage their love affairs at such a level. Much 
less do we consider ourselves capable of being interested when 
the leader in the business is of an inferior and alien race. 
If a blackamoor had carried off a rich man’s daughter from 
some mansion in our city, we should expect him at least to 
go into hiding, and wince at the first glance from an honest eye. 

The first scene is devoted essentially to subtle and degrading 
imaginative appeals, which seem to prove Othello one of the 
most despicable of men. Now Shakespeare begins the task of 
undoing our first conception, and of making the Moor a hero. 
Our first sight of the man, as he stands loftily above Iago, 
to whose report he scarcely listens, shows us there has been a 
mistake. Why, he has the thin lips and flashing eye of the 
Arab type, and the mien of open mastery. He speaks of his 
marriage with Desdemona not as a triumph, but as a sacrifice 
to his affection, and at lago’s suggestion that he retreat from 
sight, replies proudly, “Not I, I must be found.’ Soon comes 
the half-crazed Brabantio, father of the bride, with officers of 
the law. With hand uplifted, Othello calls upon them to 


194 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


“stand there,” and they stand indeed, not well knowing why. 
At Brabantio’s order, “Down with him,” which means that he 
should be thrown to the ground and pinioned, he humorously 
suggests to the posse, with a man’s contempt for child’s play, 
that they put up their swords lest the dew rust them. On 
Brabantio’s more formal order to his followers that they arrest 
him, “subdue him at his peril,” he bids them “hold their hands,” 
and all obey. Under pseudo-guard, he leads the way to the 
council, where, after hearing his story, the Doge admits that 
he should expect his own daughter to be won by the recital. 
The lofty dignity of his diction argues a noble nature, and we 
not only accept him as the hero of the play before us, but 
admit him to our personal gallery of epic figures. lIago’s 
machinations and their fruitage follow. Othello dies grandly, 
a victim not of the gods or of fate, but of duplicity and false- 
hood, yet takes his place perhaps not more doubtfully charac- 
tered than any other hero in the great tragedies of lit- 
erature. 

Looking now at the sources from which Shakespeare drew, 
we find no warrant for the indirect manner here employed. 
“The Moor was of great courage and of handsome person, and 
was very dear to the seigniors of the council. It chanced that 
a worthy lady of great beauty, named Desdemona, became 
enamored of.the Moor, because of his valor, and he, van- 
quished by her beauty and the nobility of her character, re- 
turned her love. . . . Though the parents of Desdemona did 
what they could to induce her to take a different husband, she 
and the Moor were wedded, and lived in harmony and peace in 
Venice.” 

These are the materials which Shakespeare uses, or misuses, 
in the first scene. He allows Macbeth to appear in his full 
strength, as also Hamlet, and Coriolanus, and Lear, and King 
Henry Fifth, at the opening of each respective play. Why is 
Othello robbed thus of his? No one speaks ill of him, or 
thinks ill of him, apparently, in all Venice. Why are char- 
acters created who malign him? Why is it intimated to us, 
through Roderigo, that he is not a Moor, but a negro? Why 
is added the dreadful suggestion of the drugs? No Brabantio 
in the original mentions any. And what finally is the need of 


INDIRECT CHARACTERIZATION 195 


depriving the good man so named, as he retires to his palace,— 
abounding doubtless in renaissance paintings, and curios, and 
Greek manuscripts,—and dies of a broken heart, wholly of 
our sympathy? As we ask ourselves these questions, it grows 
clear that the author would have failed, here, by literal treat- 
ment, not only of being Shakespeare, but even of making a 
successful play. 

Macaulay pronounces Othello the chief example of literary 
art. It would seem that the honor belongs rather to Antony 
and Cleopatra. In this play Shakespeare takes two historic 
figures notorious for profligacy, and makes them hero and 
heroine in defiance of our prejudices and our antagonism to the 
task proposed. He begins his study by exhibiting both title 
characters as worse than imagined, Cleopatra incredibly wilful 
and exacting, and Antony dancing attendance upon her and 
shamelessly obedient to her lightest whim. ‘The first scene is 
thus devoted, as we should expect, to the degradation of each 
nature. In the second scene, Antony is made to redeem him- 
self swiftly and grandly, and by the end of the first act Cleo- 
patra has been shown great in nature and wrong only from 
environment. Antony is a paragon of generosity, but the age 
needs a harder master, and fate chooses the cold, self-seeking 
Octavius instead. Cleopatra emancipates herself at last from 
her self-love, and as she loses her life in the supreme renun- 
ciation, finds it in epic greatness. A little penetrating study 
makes clear how Shakespeare has done for these characters, 
with us, what he could not have done in our sympathies for a 
living pair. In Julius Cesar we see one of the world’s masters 
dealt with more boldly, and yet more effectively, by the indirect 
method of characterization. 

The indirect manner was not a common expedient before 
Shakespeare, nor was it revived till near the beginning of the 
last century. Dramatists have employed it oftener and perhaps 
better than other portrayers of character and manners. Many 
authors in modern literature seem never to have noted instances 
of it in outside life, and lack the instinct to treat unattractive 
subjects by it, or to use it when there is race prejudice to over- 
come. It was attempted, but ignorantly and ineffectually, by 
George Eliot in Daniel Deronda. Longfellow seems not to 


196 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


have been aware of the strength it offered for the presenta- 
tion of the hero in Hiawatha. On the other hand, Browning 
employs it exquisitely in engaging our sympathy for Djabal, in 
The Return of the Druses, as also in developing the title char- 
acter of his Luria. Tennyson covers some use of it in The 
Princess by calling the whole work A Medley. Among recent 
studies, The Divine Fire is conspicuous for its successful char- 
acterization of a cockney hero by this means. Anne Douglas 
Sedgwick uses it prominently in Francis Winslow Kane and 
A Fountain Sealed. In The Beloved Vagabond, this method 
is twice employed. Kipling’s Second Rate Woman illustrates 
the mode in the short story. 

It behooves us to study the indirect manner, not only that 
we may appreciate the art of our best literature, but especially 
that we may dissociate ourselves from the great crazes of the 
times. When we comprehend the law of imaginative reaction, 
we uncover the secret of the many shifts of sentiment that 
characterize our national history for the last half century. 
After 1865, the type of great American changed from Wash- 
ington to Lincoln. What were the grounds for this change 
of our democratic ideals? Was it not primarily because we 
had assumed that the first man of the country must have family, 
or training, or prestige? Was it not also because nothing was 
at first expected of this man from the people, and then because 
he surpassed all expectations conceived of other public men? 
Supposed uneducated, he seemed in the end more educated 
than Everett, the finished scholar. Supposed a failure as a 
statesman, a politician, he seemed the greatest of living states- 
men, or masters of politics. Supposed unread, unlettered, he 
gave forth hurried, unconsidered utterances which are ac- 
counted classic in the whole English-speaking world. Low- 
born, and supposed ignoble, he has been pronounced by a titled 
publicist the greatest man of the modern age. Supposed un- 
christian, irreligious, he has been adjudged by a bishop the 
most religious and Christian of mankind since Paul. Mani- 
festly there is exaggeration here. But who of us is free from 
the spell of his life and name? Yet who of us is released from 
the duty of thinking soundly and judging justly? 

A professor of American history recently affirmed that the 


INDIRECT CHARACTERIZATION 197 


altruistic spirit of the North, which carried through the war 
of 1861-1865 against the South, was engendered by the Uncle 
Tom’s Cabin of Mrs. Stowe. So far as this is true, is it not 
due to the imaginative reaction occasioned by that rather ordi- 
nary novel, and by other books, such as Neighbor Jackwood, 
which followed? It had suited the business interests of the 
North to hold to the belief that the Southern negro was little 
better than a brute. Mrs. Stowe seemed to demonstrate that 
he might be instead a saint, and slavery ceased. In 1859, John 
Brown was executed with the general approval of the North. 
Four years later, a million soldiers were singing John Brown's 
Body as a battle hymn. To-day perhaps a majority of the 
sons and grandsons of those soldiers are convinced that the 
war in which they fought was a mistake, and that the victory 
which they won failed of its purpose to elevate the negro. Still 
more remarkable is the imaginative reaction that carried the 
presidential campaign of 1892, as followed by the similar craze 
of 1896. For more than a generation, the outcome of our 
national elections severally has been determined by men who 
shift their politics. Various Mark Antonys of the press or 
of the platform seem, to-day, regardless of national right or 
honor, to arrogate to themselves the function of creating and 
controlling the sentiments of the country, even to the extent of 
making peace or war at any cost. 

We should note also how the popular imagination, undi- 
rected, is ceaselessly revising its judgment of public figures. It 
lionizes some leader, lifts him to the level of idealization, then 
ignores him or even forgets that he exists. The chief naval 
hero of our war with Spain, for his single error of judgment, 
has place no longer in public thought. In our respective per- 
sonal circles, we alter our notions of friends almost from day 
to day, and suffer like revaluations from them. ‘The age is 
slowly learning to be less hasty in framing its conceptions, and 
more conservative in amending them. We can assist by striv- 
ing to be more openly true to our convictions, that we may 
not be too readily misjudged. Our friends and others do not 
stop revising their judgments, while we take our words and 
acts unseriously, of our worth. 

In making use of the indirect manner, each writer should 


198 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


conform to the prejudices or prepossessions of the reader that 
he addresses. Indeed, if he knows his power, he may imitate 
Shakespeare and intensify them. He must then find such true 
and final imaginative appeals as will establish the character 
in hand beyond all question. Every sort of nature can be 
exhibited by the indirect manner through portrayal first of its 
weaker side. But any use of the mode that is disproportionate 
to oral usage, or that is not in accord with the instincts of the 
general mind, will fail of good effect. The springs of art lie 
in deep seeing. There are reserves in every personality which, 
uncovered, will control the sympathies of all the world. The 
character of Jack Falstaff seems still, in spite of progress 
through three centuries in taste and morals, neither repellant 
nor intolerable to the most refined imagination. 


EXERCISES 


1. Recall to mind some acquaintance that you at first misunder- 
stood and misprized, but afterwards found ideal. Make with this, 
covering name and incidents from identification, an example of 
direct, and then of indirect characterization. 

2. Analyze and report, in a written appreciation, the steps and 
means by which Mark Antony, in Shakespeare’s Julius Cesar, 
changed the “citizens” who idolized Brutus, into a mob that sought 
his life. 

3. Bring back to mind the example of some official or other 
townsman whom your public at first disliked, but afterwards 
idealized. Narrate the incidents and shape the whole into a literary 
illustration of the present topic. 

4. Study with care the first three scenes of Shakespeare’s 
Othello, and make a written summary of the manner in which the 
author presents the character of Desdemona. 

5. Recall, from recent reading, some example of a short story 
in which the leading personage or some other character is handled 
in the indirect manner. 

6. Recall from memory two instances in which just and effec- 
tive presentation of character cannot be accomplished by direct 
means. Outline for each the steps and imaginative appeals proper 
for characterization by the manner of indirection. 

7. Test whether there is visual effect in the following paragraph, 
and explain its psychology: 


INDIRECT CHARACTERIZATION 199 


A New England lady was always insistent that her cup 
of tea should be brought in steaming hot. Yet the benefit 
from the unusual heat seemed to reside in the comfort 
solely of knowing that the cup was by, ready to be lifted 
at any moment. For this lady never tasted its contents till 
her meal was finished, and the tea was cold. 


8. Make, or recall from life, an instance similar, and explain its 
visual quality. 

9g. By examples, show how imaginative appeals characterizing 
men differ from such as indicate the character, generically, of 
women. 

10. Describe, from cut in Standard Dictionary, the taj of a 
Mohammedan dervish. 

11. Analyze and present a written appreciation of the character 
work in May Sinclair’s The Divine Fire, or in some more recent 
example of the same manner. 


CHAPTER XX 
MOODS AND EMOTIONS 


ITERARY composition includes the presentation of emo- 
tion as well as character. Moods and states of feeling 
must be communicated, like character, by signs. 

It is not more artistic to declare one’s emotions than one’s 
nature, and is even more difficult and ineffectual. We cannot 
convey knowledge of either sort, but must stimulate our reader, 
by imaginative appeals, to infer it and realize it for himself. 

The imaginative appeals that indicate states of feeling or 
emotion are similar to those that reveal character. The crying 
of a child serves as an imaginative appeal of pain. A roar 
of laughter imports that a company of people is oppressed by 
humor. A blush betrays a state of embarrassment or shame. 
Clutching at the wall is the proof of sudden distress. 

Our race has from the earliest times been gifted in the use 
of this sign language of imagination. When our forefathers, 
centuries ago, wished to signify the rage of god Thor, they 
represented him as grasping the handle of his hammer with 
such energy that his knuckles turned white. They might have 
said that he waxed upon occasion immeasurably angry. But 
that would not have been made god Thor visually personal to 
the children or the grown-up folk of ancient time. The only 
effective manner of presenting emotion, whether man’s or 
Thor’s, is to show such manifestations of it as we have seen 
or can imagine to have been our own. 

The most common and familiar signs of emotion are seen in 
the changes of facial expression. We know what fire in the 
eye means, or the touch of color, clenching of hands, or hard- 
ening or relaxing of the muscles about the mouth. There are 
besides numberless gestures and other movements indicative 
or mood or feeling, some of them often seen, and some not 
often or ever observed before. These we confidently, as a 


rule, refer to the feelings or emotions that respectively inspire 
200 


MOODS AND EMOTIONS 201 


them. The mind seldom continues long in the same frame, and 
the body chameleon-like makes registry, by larger or slighter 
reactions, of each change. These together make up a system 
of signs which all men and women learn almost as early as their 
mother tongue. 

Literature here as in other matters follows life, and uses 
these signs at second hand as best it may. The following are 
everyday illustrations of how we set forth such signs and 
leave the hearer or reader in each case to interpret what they 
mean : 


The mother sat drawing her finger along the table, and 
did not look up. 


While the witness was on the stand, he was brushing 
away imaginary flies from his face. 


The little urchin, about to meet a group of girls, shut 
his eyes and walked on blindly, while the girls laughed 
and shouted. 


He received us apparently without the least embarrass- 
ment. But I noticed that he was trying to read his paper 
upside down when we came in. 


After she came home from her husband’s funeral, before 
she removed her hat, she was seen to take off her wedding 
ring, and toss it into a bureau drawer. 


She always jokes with Fred, when he and Hal come to 
call, but she doesn’t say much to Hal. So Hal thinks she 
doesn’t like him. But she always asks Hal to stay. 


It is interesting to watch the faces of the men in my 
night-school class. One of these men keeps his eyes so 
fastened on me as to lose no single word or movement, 
and seems not even indeed to wink, as I explain the work, 
Another nods violently now and then, but rouses himself 
quickly, and appears to recover the sentence partly lost. 
Another takes in everything, without effort, that I say, 
and seems to watch its effect upon the class more than he 
watches me. Another eyes me personally, pays no atten- 
tion to my teaching, and refuses altogether to recite. 


We note that these examples, like imaginative appeals of 
character occasion visual activity in our thought. We may 
call them Imaginative Appeals of Mood. They range, of 


202 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


course, from simple and ordinary frames of mind to states 
of excitement and outbursts of passion. Also, as with ap- 
peals of character, we may assist interpretation by recognizing 
signs of emotion as of kind or of degree. When we see some 
one smile or exhibit levity in a home of sorrow, we are shocked 
at the kind of feeling shown. If we come upon some one 
prostrate from pain, we are interested first to know the cause 
of suffering, that is, the kind of sensation or feeling. The 
illustrations just considered are of kind. But more frequently 
it is the degree of sentiment or emotion that arouses interest 
and supplies the motive for recital. We often chance upon 
striking examples in the papers: 


As the reading progressed, a red hue overspread his face, 
and at the words “charge the said Davis with wilful and 
deliberate murder,” he swallowed convulsively and wetted 
his lips. 


Mr. Ismay testified to the Senate Committee in whispers. 
He was more nervous than at the forenoon session, con- 
stantly pulling his moustache, pinching his throat or rub- 
bing his head. 


I have seen a man, who thought he was doomed to blind- 
ness, have the bandage taken off his eyes after an opera- 
tion, and cry out, “I can see,” fall on his knees before the 
physician, and kiss his hand and his clothes, and fairly 
exhaust himself in an ecstasy of feeling. 


The following is a newspaper report of the incident in which 
two young men offered themselves to be bitten by the mosquito 
that carries the germ of yellow fever. One of the soldiers, 
both of whom took the fever, did not recover. 


When all was ready, Doctor Reed was told that two men 
wished to see him. They were two young privates from 
the regiment stationed at Havana. Both were from Ohio. 
Their names were John R. Kissinger and John J. Moran. 

They had heard of the intended experiments, and wished 
to offer themselves for the purpose. Doctor Reed ex- 
plained fully the suffering and danger they would have to 
endure, but they were not daunted. Then he spoke of the 
money reward, but both men promptly declined it. They 
said that they had volunteered for humanity’s sake, and 
they made it a condition that they should not be paid. 


MOODS AND EMOTIONS 2038 


Doctor Reed, greatly moved, touched his cap to them. 
“Gentlemen, I salute you,” he said. 

“In my opinion,” he has since remarked, “this exhibition 
of courage has never been surpassed in the history of the 
United States army.” 


Turning now to literature, we shall find excellent examples 
in almost every author. These are from Dickens: 


The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of 
the narrow street where it was spilled. Those who had 
been greedy with the staves of the cask, had acquired a 
tigerish smear about the mouth; and one tall joker so be- 
smirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of 
a night-cap than in it, smeared upon a wall with his 
finger dipped in muddy wine-lees—BLOOD! 


And when one of them told the others about it, they 
put their hands in their pockets, and quite doubled them- 
selves up with laughter, and went stamping about the pave- 
ment of the hall. 


When I made my proposal, she did me the honor to be 
so overshadowed with a species of Awe, as to be able to 
articulate only the two words, “O Thou!” meaning myself. 


Poor Mr. Jellyby, who very seldom spoke, and almost 
always sat, when he was at home, with his head against 
the wall. 


Here is a notable example, from Arnold Bennett’s Clay- 
hanger, which for some reason the author has thought well 
to explain to us in advance: 


When the barometer of Darius’s temper was falling rap- 
idly, there was a sign: a small spot midway on the bridge 
of his nose turned ivory-white. 


The following, from Chesterton’s Man Who Was Thursday 
(p. 9), shows better art: 


“T beg your pardon,” said Syme grimly, “I forgot that 
we had abolished all conventions.” 

For the first time a red patch appeared on Gregory’s 
forehead. 

“You don’t expect me,” he said, “to revolutionize society 
upon this lawn.” me 


204 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


Many illustrations are met with in books of biography and 
history. Carlyle’s paragraph on the execution of Charlotte 
Corday will serve in place of various examples here: 


On this same evening therefore, about half-past seven 
o'clock, from the gate of the Conciergerie, to a city all on 
tiptoe, the fatal cart issues; seated on it a fair young crea- 
ture, sheeted in red smock of murderess; so beautiful, 
serene, so full of life; journeying towards death,—alone 
amid the world. Many take off their hats, saluting rever- 
ently; for what heart but must be touched? Others growl 
and howl. Adam Lux, of Mentz, declares that she is 
greater than Brutus; that it were beautiful to die with 
her: the head of this young man seems turned. At the 
Place de la Révolution, the countenance of Charlotte wears 
the same smile. The executioners proceed to bind her 
feet; she resists, thinking it meant as an insult; on a word 
of explanation, she submits with a cheerful apology. As 
the last act, all being now ready, they take the necker- 
chief from her neck; a blush of maidenly shame over- 
spreads that fair face and neck; the cheeks were still 
tinged with it when the executioner lifted the severed 
head to show it to the people. “It is most true,” said Fors- 
ter, “that he struck the cheek insultingly; for I saw it 
with my eyes: the Police imprisoned him for it.” 


There was small need to add saluting “reverently,” or that 
the blush was the blush of modesty, or that the executioner 
struck the cheek “insultingly,” to the story. True art excludes 
all asides and glosses. ‘Turgenev, master of masters, best 
shows this: 


The old man crimsoned to his ears, and with a sidelong 
look at Liza, hurriedly went from the room. 


He was shaking all over from side to side, and showing 
his teeth like a wild boar. I snatched up my gun and 
took to my heels. 


It is needless to say that the Ozhgins’s doors were at 
once closed to me. Kirilla Mateveitch even sent me back 
a bit of pencil I had left at his house. 


On the floor of the garret, in a whirl of dust and rub- 
bish, a blackish gray mass was moving to and fro with 
rapid ungainly action, at one moment shaking the remain- 


MOODS AND EMOTIONS 205 


ing chimney, then tearing up the boarding and flinging it 
down below, then clutching at the very rafters. It was 
Harlov. The bitter wind was blowing upon him from 
every side, lifting his matted locks. It was horrible to 
hear his wild husky muttering. The old village priest, 
whom I knew, was standing bareheaded, on the steps of 
the other house, and holding a brazen cross in both hands, 
from time to time, silently and hopelessly, raised it, and, 
as it were, showed it to Harlov. Beside the priest stood 
Evlampia with her back against the wall, gazing fixedly 
at her father. Anna, at one moment, pushed her head 
out of the little window, then vanished, then hurried into 
the yard, then went back into the house. Sletkin—pale 
all over, livid—in an old dressing gown and smoking cap, 
with a single-barrelled rifle in his hands, kept running to 
and fro with little steps. He was grasping, threatening, 
shaking, pointing the gun at Harlov, then letting it drop 
back on his shoulder—pointing it again, shrieking, weeping 
.. . On seeing Souvenit and me he simply flew to us. 

“Look, look, what is going on here!” he wailed—“look ! 
He’s gone out of his mind . . . and see what he’s doing! 
I’ve sent for the police already—but no one comes! If 
I do fire at him, the law couldn’t touch me, for every man 
has a right to defend his own property! And I will fire!” 

He ran off towards the house. 

“Martin Petrovitch, look out! If you don’t get down, 
Vl fire!” 

“Fire away!” came a husky voice from the roof. “Fire 
away! And meanwhile here’s a little present for you!” 

A long plank flew up, and, turning over twice in the 
air, came violently to the earth, just at Sletkin’s feet. 
He positively jumped into the air, while Harlov chuckled. 
—A Lear of the Steppes, xxvi. 


Interest is often engaged by imaginative appeals that indi- 
cate some common emotion of a group or class. These cor- 
respond to the appeals used (p. 173) to effect class characteri- 
zation. Bram Stoker writes thus of Henry Irving’s farewell 
visits in Wales: 


The last night at Cardiff was a touching farewell. This 
was repeated at Swansea with a strange addition: when 
the play was over and the calls finished the audience sat 
still in their places and seemingly with one impulse be- 
gan to sing. They are all part-singers in those regions, 
and it was a strange and touching effect when the strains 


206 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


of Newman’s beautiful hymn, “Lead, kindly light,” filled 
the theatre. 


The following is part of an Associated Press dispatch, from 
New York, bearing the date of August 5, 1914: 


The French liner Lorraine sailed to-day on a tide of 
tears. Aboard her were 2,000 French reservists. They 
answered the call to the tricolor. They sailed away, per- 
haps to death, following a pathetic leave-taking of their 
friends and dear ones. Splendidly dressed women who had 
come to bid saloon passengers Godspeed broke down, em- 
braced the sturdy soldiers of the reservist corps and com- 
forted the sobbing of the men with their kisses. 

Strong men crouched on the deck, their heads in their 
hands as they were bowed in prayer and tears. Just be- 
fore the vessel cleared her docks, someone started the 
Marseillaise. The departing ones took up the thrilling 
refrain in a chorus that swelled out over the docks. 


Such appeals of mood as can be made to do duty in reported 
and literary forms are fairly represented in the examples 
now considered. Incapable of such employment is of course 
the infinitely various and subtle gesticulation of dentonstrative 
folk, which cannot be reproduced except by imitation. Beyond 
this, and far from the reach of makers of literature, there is 
an inadvertent sign language of moods, unintelligible to com- 
mon eyes, but full of meaning to the expert observer: 


The antiquary asks a hundred francs for a piece of 
china upon which, an air of unqualified generosity, you 
offer him the half. He puts on a mournful expression as if 
he had not tasted food for days and says that he refused 
double that sum only an hour ago—it is but owing to his 
esteem for you which makes him lower his price. Where- 
upon you turn upon your heel; and be careful, O novice, 
that the craving for the china bowl does not show in the 
curve of your neck: the Italian dealer, even while most 
absorbed in the contemplation of his finger-tips or the 
cobwebs on his rafters has the eye of a lynx. 


One of the last refinements of literature is the communica- 
tion of lighter moods, or rather states of consciousness, that 
put us strangely into sympathy with the characters concerned. 
There are many masters in this manner: 


MOODS AND EMOTIONS 207 


The old man made no answer, but took the parcel of tea 
and sugar with both hands. 


And both the sisters bowed, Anna from the waist, 
Evlampia simply with a motion of the head. 

Sergei Petrovitch applied a corner of the handkerchief 
first to one and then to the other eye. 

He remained unseeing, almost unwinking, while the 
panorama of beauty was poured out, by the beautiful can- 
vasser, before him. 

There was always a tear in her left eye, on the strength 
of which Kalliopa Karlovna considered herself a woman 
of great sensibility. 

Christina was silent. She stretched out her bare arm 
and looked at it a moment absently, turning it so as to 
see—or almost to see—the dimple in her elbow. 


Consciousness signs, as these delicate appeals to imagination 
may be called, mark states of consciousness in which action 
and feeling are virtually unaroused, and the soul forces seem 
at their lowest ebb. It is in these that we come closest to each 
other, and personality is most clearly differentiated. Appeals 
of mood in general tend to inspire in the mind conceptions of 
individual nature, and are often used in substitution for imagi- 
native appeals of character. 


EXERCISES 


1. Report from observation, in writing, two strong examples 
illustrating Imaginative Appeals of Mood. 

2. Determine whether these illustrations are of kind or of 
degree, and report similarly two others of the contrary sort. 

3. Bring in and discuss, from your reading, two examples 
of feeling or emotion as indicated by signs. Show how their 
effectiveness is modified by adding an interpretation of these 
signs. 

4. Show by what moods the play of Othello, in the second 
scene of the first act, proceeds. 

5. Write your appreciation and judgments of Irvine’s My Lady 
of the Chimney Corner. 

6. Find, and compare with this, a history or story similar. 

7. Write, from personal observation or knowledge, a sketch 
based upon, or involving largely, imaginative appeals of mood. 


CHAPTER XXI 
SUBSTANCE AND ORIGINALITY 


ie we watch the speech of those who converse acceptably, we 
shall note that they are careful to avoid saying things that 
are merely obvious. They aim generally indeed at something 
higher, that is, the expression of ideas that are untrite or 
new. 

If all men had the same ideas, there could scarcely be a mo- 
tive for sustained or entertaining conversation. But almost all 
people have clear notions concerning matters on which some 
of their fellows are not so clear. I see with great confidence 
what I ought to do. I am likely to see with greater confidence 
what my neighbor ought to do. He undoubtedly sees with 
equal conviction that certain of my designs are improvident or 
unwise. Thus we may easily find occasion to exchange our 
views. 

This neighbor of mine, let us suppose, tells a group of 
friends that he proposes to use all his fluid capital, say $100,000, 
in building a larger and more costly home. It is at once recog- 
nized that his children, now almost grown, furnish no pre- 
sumable motive for the change. It thus seems clear to most 
of the company that he should be content with a less pre- 
tentious house, and keep some of this capital permanently in- 
vested. One of the number says this, in the discussion that 
follows, to the others, and all apparently, including the neigh- 
bor concerned, accept the idea, and are ready, with it, to close 
the case. 

But one member of the group, who has not spoken before, 
now explains that he has a somewhat different notion from 
either of those considered. “For men in your circumstances,” 
he says to the neighbor, “and in mine, would it not be wiser 
to build a block of houses, thus investing the whole sum, and 


producing homes that are select and attractive, you living in 
208 


SUBSTANCE AND ORIGINALITY 209 


one yourself? You distribute the cost of your own house 
among the other divisions of the block, live virtually rent- 
free, and keep most of the capital invested interest-bearing.” 
To this the whole company, dropping out of mind the idea that 
had been just before approved, assent, and, after a little silence, 
pass to another topic. 

It is from differences of penetration and judgment, like 
these, that ordinary conversations are supplied. When we 
converse acceptably, we either say something, of fact or 
thought, that our hearers do not know, or we help make them 
clearer and more confident on matters of fact or thought that 
they know in part. If we fail to do either of these things, 
and express meanings only that go without saying, our society 
will not be greatly prized. On the contrary, unless our manner 
of formulating obvious comments makes up largely for the 
emptiness of our matter, we shall be accounted bores. 

Now, literary writing is, in kind, such talking to an unseen 
audience as we engage in when conversing with one another. 
Some of the literature of the future will perhaps be phono- 
graphic, rendered to us from cylinders registering the very 
tones of the author as he spoke his sentences. A prominent 
novelist of the day dictates his text to a stenographer. The 
man who thus speaks, or will speak, to the literary public, must 
speak from larger and more vital inspiration, and must be surer 
of himself and of his meanings, than when addressing his per- 
sonal circle. The ordinary talk of people, if reported and 
shown in print, would seem pointless and inane. It is only 
ideas whose worth lasts longer than the moment of utterance, 
or which are expressed in a manner likely to give lasting pleas- 
ure, that are proper matter to go into literary forms. 

It seems clear that we should not write what will not be 
worth the time or effort to express orally. Mere accuracy of 
diction is no warrant for saying stupid things. If we can write 
obvious or inconsequential meanings correctly, we can write 
better meanings just as well. There is no reason, as we have 
made clear to ourselves already, why we should consent to 
stultify ourselves when we write, while we are at such pains 
to avoid stultifying ourselves, or in any way falling below our 
proper level of intelligence, when we talk. Our first obliga- 


210 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


tion, whether we write or speak, is to be provided with mean- 
ings that justify and call for utterance. Our next duty tequires 
that we say as well as we are able whatever we have judged 
worth saying. 

Nobody ever thinks of searching for topics to talk about. 
There is really no greater dearth of matter on which to write. 
We have realized, in earlier chapters, how endless is the array 
of subjects offering themselves to those willing patiently to 
look or think. Any object or happening that has inspired us 
to narrate or describe orally may be proper material, provided 
it is worth remembering, for literary handling. Again, while 
we engage oftener in narration than in description, we perhaps 
concern ourselves more with the natures and behavior of people, 
—that is, with the interpretation of character and motives, 
than with both combined. Any sort of character is worth 
drawing orally, many of the folk we meet are worth sketching 
more deliberately with the pen, while unique personalities are 
of the highest literary interest and value. All of us are un- 
doubtedly aware of subjects for character-analysis that are as 
instructive, and perhaps as striking, as the majority of types 
treated in the novels of the day. Besides, every one of us is 
continually making discoveries in motives as well as natures, 
some of which the world would be glad to know. Literature 
is in part made up of select types and sentiments of this kind, 
which the public has approved and is minded to preserve. 

But the conversation of intelligent people is not engaged 
more than incidentally with the new natures or motives, or 
with matters for mere narration or description. Life concerns 
itself most largely with ideas and convictions of the sort that 
may be developed by exposition. The essence of conversation 
is of thought and sentiment, and not of fact; and of thought 
and sentiment, and not of fact, are the values in literature. 
The talk of our company concerning the best course for the 
house-builder closed with the uncovering of principles, of wis- 
dom, concerning the general matter of investing money and 
supplying homes. Thus truth, oil-like, rises out of crude and 
confused exchanges of thought, and the discussion ended be- 
cause wisdom that satisfied the good sense of the company 
had come to the top. 


SUBSTANCE AND ORIGINALITY 211 


There are three values recognizable in the conversation that 
this group engage in, and in all like conversations. Of the 
lowest worth was the notion, commonplace to all its members, 
of investing all one’s means in an ostentatious house. Of 
higher wisdom was the idea, which came to three or four of 
the company, of reserving some of the capital against emer- 
gency, for income. Of yet higher value was the plan, proposed 
by the last speaker, which ended the discussion. The sociolo- 
gist would have had it close with a full statement of the prin- 
ciple, already in sight, that the man intending to build houses 
for others is as much bound to consider the betterment of 
public health and comfort as to ensure the increase of his own 
wealth. 3 

There are, similarly, three grades of thought-values in litera- 
ture, New Ideas, Developed or Clarified Ideas, Commonplace 
Ideas. 

The most important thing that can happen to a man or to 
mankind is the discernment of new principles, of new truth. 
This comes to us in the shape of “potential,” that is of un- 
realized, undeveloped notions. Morse’s idea of communication 
by electricity was such a notion, and has made of the civilized 
world one neighborhood. Marconi’s idea of telegraphy with- 
out wires was another such notion, and has brought the paths 
of the sea under observation and largely of control. Pasteur’s 
notion of microbes as the origin or occasion of disease has per- 
haps added years to the lives severally of every one of us. 
Darwin’s theory of progressive development through processes 
of the will has shown us the beginnings of our race, and seems 
to establish for it a career of indefinite intellectual and moral 
growth. 

The quality or activity of mind which discovers such ideas 
is known as Insight. It is the gift of discerning principles at 
first hand, either by way of facts or instances, or intuitively 
without them. It is the faculty of the brain or function of the 
soul that has originated what is of highest worth in the litera- 
ture of the world. Emerson, though somewhat out of favor 
with the present generation, will furnish a significant illustra- 
tion. This is the first paragraph of the work that first gained 
him fame: 


212 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


To go into solitude a man needs to retire as much from 
his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst 
I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a 
man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays 
that come from those heavenly worlds will separate be- 
tween him and what he touches. One might think the 
atmosphere had been made transparent with this design, 
to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual pres- 
ence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great 
they are! If the stars should appear one night in a thou- 
sand years, how would men believe and adore; and pre- 
serve for many generations the remembrance of the city 
of God which had been shown! But every night come out 
these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their 
admonishing smile. 


“A man is never alone when employed with his own 
thoughts.” This is a truth that most people probably discover 
at some time or other for themselves. Emerson expresses this 
new idea, and implies another,—that it is possible to enter into 
solitude, away so to speak from one’s self, at will. He then 
stops to give us a sentence of interpretation, which we shall 
need to interpret further into details of our own, like these: 
“When I read, I do not merely gain the meanings of my author 
by my powers of perception. Various companion faculties 
speak to me as I proceed. One voice says, “That is true,’ and 
another, “That is clever, surprising.’ Another voice protests, 
‘But it is heartless,’ ‘it is mean,’ and soon. When I write, some 
mentor within tells me, ‘That is not sound,’ another says, ‘It is 
unworthy of you, and must be changed.’ ” After this assistance 
comes Emerson’s main new thought: “If I would still the voices 
from these seemingly separate selves in me, I have but to look 
at the stars. Then all the comments of dissent, of censure, of 
gratulation are hushed. A sentiment of sublimity swallows up 
all other activities of the mind. The soul is lone in a universe 
of mystery and power.” 

“One might suspect,” he goes on to say, “that the atmosphere 
was made transparent,’—and he might have added that the 
vapors of the carboniferous era were lifted—“with this design, 
to open to man perpetually this vision with its spiritualizing 
influences.” To suggest the degree of its power, he follows 
with the surprising truth that the sight of the stars, if with- 


\ 


SUBSTANCE AND ORIGINALITY 213 


held for a thousand years, would seem hardly less at return 
than a veritable theophany, an unveiling of the Infinite. An 
eclipse of the sun stops business, and draws everybody out, 
with smoked lenses, to see the marvel. Children and grand- 
children of those privileged to watch for one night the sky, 
would strive to transmit the experiences told them, by word of 
mouth, to coming generations of their families. But what 
would be thus the supreme privilege of the few has been or- 
dained a standing spectacle for all the world. 

It is clear that these opening sentences from Nature are 
almost all of the highest value that we can recognize; that is, 
they are of the sort that present themselves to one mind and 
are accepted by all others. In that universal, one-sided con- 
versation that we call literature, the man of inner vision cor- 
responds to the last speaker of our group that discussed house- 
building, or would have corresponded exactly, had this person 
monopolized the conversation and expressed nothing but new 
ideas like the one broached finally to the company. Literature 
composed principally of new meanings cannot be read with 
profit rapidly. Each sentence, whether a revealment or an 
elucidation, may well be made over, as has just been done, 
into terms of one’s personal experience or thought. Most 
writers of marked insight, like Bacon, Hazlitt, Amiel, Matthew 
Arnold, Lowell, combine a few new notions with much matter 
of a clarifying sort. The classic worthies, as Sophocles and 
Plato, with the seers and thinkers of yet more ancient times, 
often use sentences of the second or explanatory kind, but 
seldom of the commonplace or third. 

When an idea that occurs to us seems new as well as true, 
it is of the kind we call Original. It may have come to many 
other minds, and long before our time, yet it is, in relation 
to ourselves, a new discovery. When a notion comes to view 
that has never been discerned before—and such ideas seem to 
present themselves now and then to all normal minds—it is 
original in the proper and often in the literary sense. The 
gift of insight which furnishes original thoughts is not dif- 
ferent, except in kind, from the instinctive perception which 
supplied Napoleon with his strategy. It was his insight that 
enabled the founder of the Vanderbilt fortunes to foresee the 


214 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


tremendous expansion of traffic between West and East, and 
to prepare for it by consolidating railway lines. It was his 
insight that showed Spencer the idea of interminable evolution 
as the law of life and nature. It was insight that revealed to 
Grove his notion of the correlation of forces. The gift and 
operation of insight in many cases of this sort, and always 
when the degree of intuition is commanding, is known as 
genius. 

There is small occasion for any one to address the public, 
or propose to address it, in a literary way, if he or she has 
nothing to communicate but what everybody knows already. 
Martin Farquhar Tupper did not weigh well his values, and 
became a laughing-stock to discerning readers. On the other 
hand, if a speaker or writer is prepared to help the public 
comprehend and realize more clearly and finally ideas that 
they grasp imperfectly, he will serve them, and they will re- 
ward his pains. This is the general character and purpose of 
the sermon, the lecture, and the species of literature known 
as the essay. 

But, along with the expression of amending or clarifying 
meanings, there are apt to arise, in the mind of the writer, new 
notions of much higher worth. It is hardly possible to effect an 
exposition of even common ideas that have come to us with 
force and clearness without encountering new and illuminating 
thoughts. There is probably no good book or sermon or ar- 
ticle in existence but has been given to the public because of 
supposed new truths, of seemingly large value to the times. 
There is also much original thought administered to us in- 
cidentally in lighter forms. Shakespeare is perhaps the most 
original of all makers of literature, yet addresses us, for the 
most part, only through the speech of his characters, as their 
various personalities permit. Some of the best wisdom of 
recent years has been communicated to us in books of fiction. 
Even Dickens emits at times a flash of insight: 


Some purpose or other is so natural to every one, that 
a mere loiterer always looks and feels remarkable. 


Stevenson often makes his characters say truths of moment: 


SUBSTANCE AND ORIGINALITY 215 


Yes, sir, by six-and-thirty, if a man be a follower of 
God’s laws, he should have made himself a home and a 
good name to live by. 


Meredith, less novelist than philosopher, abounds in sage 
reflections : 


Beauty, of course, is for the hero. Nevertheless, it is 
not always he on whom beauty works its most conquer- 
ing influence. It is the dull commonplace man into whose 
slow brain she drops like celestial light, and burns last- 
ingly. 


Howells is a thinker as well as a consummate artist of life 
and manners: 


We must remember that men have always been better 
than their conditions, and that otherwise they would have 
remained savages without the instinct or the wish to 
advance. 


As men grow old or infirm they fall into subjection to 
their womankind; their rude wills yield in the suppler in- 
sistence of the feminine purpose; they take the color of 
the feminine moods and emotions; the cycle of life com- 
pletes itself where it began, in helpless dependence upon 
the sex. 


Interesting is the employment of insight upon itself. These 
observations concerning the nature and value of the clear- 
seeing mind were surely not borrowed from earlier authors, 
but discerned over again, perhaps at the moment of utterance, 
by the respective writers: 


But literature is, almost by definition, a communication 
of intuitions—John Middleton Murray. 


It begins to be everywhere surmised that the real Force, 
which in this world all things must obey, is Insight, Spirit- 
ual Vision and determination.—Carlyle. 


And so it is with drama,—no matter what its form,—it 
need only be the “real thing,” need only have caught some 
of the precious fluid, revelation, and imprisoned it within 
a chalice to which we put our lips and continually drink. 
—Galsworthy. 


216 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


Absolutely without originality there is no man. No man 
whatever believes, or can believe, exactly what his grand- 
father believed: he enlarges somewhat, I say; finds some- 
what that was credible to his grandfather incredible to 
him, false to him, inconsistent with some new thing he has 
discovered or observed.—Carlyle. 


There is much more of substance, in literature, and of mean- 
ings that we call original, than most readers are aware. Many 
of the shallower sorts of writing show at times, along with 
half-truths and paradoxes, new ideas that are clever and 
valuable. Good plays and novels deal generally with personal 
and domestic complications, or with special aspects of social 
problems. The mass of legitimate drama and fiction is thus 
made up of studies in the second or clarifying values. Low- 
grade, “dime-novel” literature is of the third or commonplace 
class, while containing much that is false in philosophy and im- 
possible in fact. Of course, new types of character, as well as 
new phases or subjects of narration or description, are as truly 
original as new principles or thoughts. 

It is clearly wise and necessary to test the worth of what 
comes into our minds to say, as also to judge it after we have 
put it into form. There is a vice in authorship of a certain 
sort which, aware of its limitations, strives to appear original. 
All right and normal minds come by their proper proportion 
of original thoughts, for use in writing, just as they come 
by their personal quota of ideas, to be expressed in conversa- 
tion. The man who is sincere, and willing, while he has noth- 
ing to communicate, to hold his literary as his oral peace, will 
keep the respect of others and his own. If, believing in him- 
self, he speak or write frankly his convictions, and nothing less 
or more, he will not remain long undervalued. And by the 
use of no expedient will he be long credited beyond desert. 

The part of a man’s originality which concerns the manner, 
as distinguished from the matter of his discourse, should not 
be neglected. Every learner should avoid, as soon as he is 
able to describe, narrate, make expositions, draw character, and 
present emotion, the direct or conscious imitation of any model. 
His personal way of doing each of these things in writing, like 
his personal way of effecting them in conversation, will, when 


SUBSTANCE AND ORIGINALITY 217 


perfected, become his categorically best way. He should de- 
velop his personal style of spoken as well as of written ut- 
terance. He will never profit by aping another’s manner or 
manners. More than all, he should exercise and respect his 
insight as the choicest asset of his personality. One of Emer- 
son’s maxims is worth remembering: “Keep a journal. Pay 
so much honor to the visits of Truth to your mind as to re- 
cord them.” 


EXERCISES 


1. In Bacon’s essay Of Youth and Age show what ideas are to 
be regarded as original. 

2. In the passages or paragraphs quoted in Chapter XIV show 
what sentences are to be classed as of the amplifying or clarifying 
sort. 

3. From some outgrown or discarded theme, find what sen- 
tences are not of the first or the second grade of value. 

4. Read Emerson’s Fortune of the Republic, and report ten sen- 
tences that seem to you unmistakably original. 

5. Find and report examples from Shakespeare that illustrate 
the greatness of his insight. 

6. Utilize, in a short story, some idea that has come to you as 
new and useful. 

7, Read Macaulay’s Essay on Milton, and report the sentences 
or passages that seem to you of highest literary worth. 

8. Discuss Hazlitt’s essay on Egotism as an example of exposi- 
tion, and designate the ideas that you think original, or com- 
monplace. 

g. Write an appreciation of Carlyle’s Burns and Macaulay’s 
Milton, and compare in clarifying treatment and originality. 

to. Select and examine a dozen paragraphs of Amiel’s Journal, 
and develop your impressions of their quality. 

11. Examine some expository paper in the Atlantic or Harper's, 
and weigh its pretensions with reference to the three values recog- 
nized in this chapter. 

12. Develop, in a brief exposition, some new notion that has 
come to your own mind. 


CHAPTER XXII 
ARGUMENTATION 


ITH the topic now reached, which concludes the first 
part of our studies, we may well pause and review the 
record of our work. Our purpose at starting was to discover, 
so far as practicable, the secret of present-day visual writing. 
We have found that certain oral processes of description, nar- 
ration, and character-drawing lie at the bottom of pictorial 
success in literary art. We have seen how exposition, though 
dealing with principles rather than with objects, may be made 
essentially visual as well as clear. We have realized also 
something of the relation which originality sustains to litera- 
ture, through noting how a new thought commands and re- 
wards attention in outside life. We have been helped to appre- 
ciate how men who hold the attention of the public intersperse 
what would be otherwise wearisome pronouncements, with new 
ideas. We begin to be aware that novelists who profess to em- 
ploy themselves with fresh types of experience or personality, 
use their best invention, like brilliant conversationalists, to 
bring forward and exploit new principles of human nature or 
society. Indeed, some of the most eminent among them seem 
to owe their standing more to their “philosophy,’”—that is, 
their originality, than to literary skill. 

We now need and wish to approach Argumentation, as we 
approached exposition, from the side of life rather than of 
books. We are perhaps expecting soon to study this subject 
from a text, and look forward with doubtful enthusiasm to the 
task. But literary argumentation is little different, except in 
degree, from the disputes and discussions that we engage in 
with our schoolmates and companions every day. In these 
debates we each manage to hold our ground with clearness, 
simplicity, and often with vividness of thought and speech. 
Here, as in earlier topics, it will be better to bring our oral 


instincts and habits into line, for the new work, than to at- 
218 


ARGUMENTATION 219 


tempt the creation of new ones. While we have inherited two 
somewhat different dialects of English speech, one for speak- 
ing and one for writing, we have discovered that there is but 
one art, one psychology, for either. 

Exposition, typically considered, names the effort of one 
mind to help another understand or appreciate the deeper mean- 
ings of a subject. Exposition, as has been noted, is sometimes 
said to be nothing more than explanation. Like the latter word, 
it implies that the party of the second part is to some degree 
ready and willing to be shown. Argumentation, on the con- 
trary, carries an intimation that the mind of the individual or 
audience addressed is already well advised or indeed persuaded. 
Argumentation may therefore be defined not inexactly as expo- 
sition engaged in to alter the conviction or opinions of a per- 
son or group of people. 

Opinion and convictions originate from nurture and from 
insight. We are variously indoctrinated in the home and at 
school, and so derive respective preferences and aversions. An- 
terior to all instruction, different personal endowments in- 
dividualize us severally toa marked degree. Moreover, insight, 
though an instinct or sense of truth, does not furnish identical 
perceptions of the same truth even to like-minded folk. Dif- 
ferences of temperament, taste, and circumstance tend to in- 
tensify disparity of judgments, and force us in framing them 
to vital disagreements of theory and action. 

Argumentation aims to establish agreement between dissent- 
ing minds by attempting to bring mooted instances under the 
application of mutually accepted principles. It is sometimes 
public and formal, but vastly oftener informal and unpremedi- 
tated. Each one of us is constantly drawn into debate with our 
friends or fellows over matters of theirs which we do not ap- 
prove, and not less constantly our friends appeal to reason 
against us over certain of our ways and views. What we do, 
all the world is doing in the same spirit and after the same 
fashion. Thus is argumentation one of the most incessant and 
inevitable employments of the mind. Beginning with a per- 
sonal conviction, it may found a party, a sect, or even a re- 
ligion. To illustrate, first, its more technical and formal proc- 
esses, we will rehearse an example from civic life. 


220 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


In a small but ambitious city of some 10,000 inhabitants, 
a public-spirited and optimistic citizen proposes that the prin- 
cipal business and residence streets be paved. He insists that 
the town is financially ready, that the value of fronting property 
will increase beyond the cost of the improvements called for, 
through the influx of new residents and capital, and that pub- 
lic spirit alone should prompt the people to meet the expense, 
if need were, from their surplus means. This man’s circle of 
friends, and soon the city, is divided into parties. There is 
endless debate on the street corners and everywhere. 

Those who propose a departure from an existing state of 
affairs are called the affirmative side or party, and must as- 
sume the burden of establishing their cause. “He who affirms 
must prove.” The opposing party needs only to deny the con- 
tentions of the affirmative, yet will also generally attempt to 
strengthen itself by offering positive arguments to support its 
negative views. 

The unit in discussions of this kind is called an Argument. 
An argument is a reason, involving an axiom or other prin- 
ciple presumably acceptable to the hostile side, but tending to 
establish some contention of its opponents. Here the argu- 
ments which the affirmative has presented in all confidence as 
self-evident propositions are: First, that the city is financially 
in readiness to begin the paving of its streets; Second, that 
property values will at once increase and cover at least the cost 
of the proposed improvements; Third, that there will be de- 
mand, from outside the city, for the improved property at its 
enhanced valuation; and Fourth, that the town could well 
afford to invest the cost of paving its streets for reasons of 
civic pride. 

At the next stage, the question comes up for debate in the 
city council, the members of which, like the citizens, are divided 
in opinion. At the first meeting, after a motion to issue bonds 
for paving has been made and supported by the arguments 
already summarized, a spokesman for the opposition or nega- 
tive replies in this vein: 


Common sense as well as experience testifies that, in 
matters of public policy, a community always divides itself 


ARGUMENTATION 221 


into two parties. There is, of course, the party of change, 
or, as it styles itself, the party of progress. This part of 
the public is on the lookout for something new, and is 
mainly anxious to establish in the small what has been 
found desirable in the large. It forces the season of im- 
provements, so to speak, under glass. Here, the party 
of haste, of daring innovation, proposes to treat our little 
borough to the luxury of bonded indebtedness, in order 
that we may boast of urban features of no use or profit. 
It affirms that we are abundantly able to begin paving 
our streets. I admit that we have the means, but deny 
that we can afford to use them for a foolish purpose, 
and the majority of heavy tax-payers deny it with me. 
We are told that property will rise in value sufficiently 
to absorb the cost. I deny this as sheer assumption. No 
proof whatever has been offered. We are further assured 
that, if we pave our city, it will attract new residents 
who will be glad to buy our holdings at the enhanced 
prices he predicts. I say there is not the slightest ground 
for such a declaration. As for drawing on our bank ac- 
counts to polish up the streets, I for one will say that I am 
willing to spend some of my money in ornamenting the 
front of my grounds, but shall resist the injustice of being 
forced to do it until my neighbor is ready to paint his 
house and mow his lawn. 


The first business of the negative is properly contradiction. 
As the speaker for the affirmative confines himself to assertions 
that he has apparently assumed would not be challenged, his 
opponent appropriately denies, and puts him to his proofs. 
These the former speaker, who has taken pains to prepare him- 
self fully upon the question, now supplies: 


My friend charges me with making gratuitous assump- 
tions. I gave him credit for being abreast of the times 
in knowledge that I did not stop to rehearse,—namely, that 
towns which pave increase at once the value of frontage 
property to the extent of costs incurred. Surely a citizen 
of such wide reading and acquaintance with affairs must 
have at some time known that this has been true in the 
life of cities for generations. It is what has happened 
in Lowell and Lawrence and Haverhill, and Omaha and 
Denver and St. Paul. Statistics which I have before me, 
obtained by comparing grand lists of twenty cities in years 
just before and just after reaching the paving stage, will, 
I think, absolve me from the charge of guesswork in this 


222 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


business. As for my argument from increased prices, 
which he is pleased to rank also among assumptions, I 
have figures showing transactions in realty among the 
cities I have named and establishing my contention with- 
out an exception in the list. The average increase of 
values, as shown in the transfers, is twenty-three per cent. 
Our friend affirms that the majority of our larger owners 
of city property are against improvements. I fear that 
here he is himself furnishing an ideal example of working 
off assumptions and assertions in lieu of argument. The 
fact is that, by actual canvass—and I have the names 
before me—sixty per cent of those taxed for realty in 
this “borough,” as he calls it, and representing seventy-two 
per cent of the taxable property, favor the idea of paving 
this year. 

I am glad my opponent has called attention to the truth 
that there is always a conservative party, or, as it might 
be called, the party of inertia, when any advancement is 
proposed. There was such a party in the country at the 
time of the Revolution. Those composing it were known 
as Tories, but they failed to win or recommend their 
cause. There was a conservative party, which, in the 
Civil War, advocated peace, with a division of the country, 
and the continued enslavement of the negro. ‘The first 
paving of Chicago and of New York was undoubtedly 
begun against the protests of the party of stagnation, 
which might be conceivably opposed, on account of in- 
creased taxes, to pavements even yet. 


The negative speaker now affirms, in reply, that the con- 
servative side of society has been as often right, in the long run, 
as the progressive. In the parliamentary struggle in England, 
conservatism won at the end. In the French Revolution, and 
the Revolutions in Spain and elsewhere, parties of reckless 
change were overthrown. In our own country, we have had 
the Know-Nothing craze, the Greenback craze, the Free Sil- 
ver craze, and some others not less absurd. ‘But we are not 
so besotted,” he insists, “as to revolt against the idea of pave- 
ments altogether. They are necessary in a busy town, and 
save many times their cost. They are not a necessity with us, 
and would not be worth more than a fraction of the investment. 
The question really is, Under what conditions should an am- 
bitious village assume the burdens of city taxation? It should 
have become a commercial and manufacturing center. We are 


ARGUMENTATION 223 


a residence city. To warrant change, there should be financial 
loss from the use of unpaved streets. In an unpaved business 
city of which I know, and one having more inhabitants than 
ours, a certain builder lost $1800 from increased drayage 
charges, due to miry streets, in a single month. But I have 
yet to learn of any builder or merchant here being put to extra 
expense from the condition of the streets in the worst seasons. 
Besides, there should be other reasons than saving, there should 
be a greater volume of business in sight. We have no prospect 
of immediate growth in trade or population. The cost of $100 
a lot on each side of improved streets must be raised entirely, 
as also interest charges met, from the present unexpanded in- 
comes of our people.” 

The second speaker is manifestly the better thinker, being 
able to hold his own, when worsted in his attempt at facts, 
by laying emphasis on principles. The best debater, funda- 
mentally, is the one possessed of the deepest and most ready 
insight. But the man of originality, like this one, must not 
depend too confidently on his powers of analysis and invention. 
These data needful in such a case cannot be supplied, as he has 
learned, by intuition. His adversary has taken the trouble to 
be armed with figures, and has scored. But this representative 
of the negative has been the first to state the case correctly. 
To realize this, we must examine the framework of the dispute 
in progress, and all like discussions. 

In debates such as the present, the form of reasoning in- 
volved is called a Syllogism. In each syllogism there is, first, a 
Major Premise or principle; as, to take a stock example, “All 
men are mortal.” There is also a Minor Premise, which is not 
a general but a particular fact or truth, as “Socrates is a man.” 
Then follows the Conclusion, showing the consequence of ap- 
plying the general principle in the major premise to the par- 
ticular example in the minor; as here, “Therefore Socrates 
is mortal.” The conclusion is always unequivocal and final, 
if both premises are correct. It is to these, accordingly, that 
particular attention must be paid. 

In the present discussion, as the last debater has in effect 
implied, the minor premise is the center of difficulty. The for- 
mal syllogism begins thus: “At a certain point in the growth 


224 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


of a city, pavements become proper and necessary.” This is 
the major premise, and is not disputed. The minor premise 
is, “This city of ours has reached that particular point or 
stage.” Were this also admitted, the conclusion, “That our 
city should at once begin to provide itself with pavements,” 
would follow. But the minor premise has not been established, 
and from present promise is not likely to be established, It 
is only now, after much bandying of assertions, that the real 
point at issue has been uncovered. The affirmative side must 
show what the prerequisite development must consist in, as 
also that their town has reached it. Their speakers must pre- 
sent figures exhibiting the amount of traffic on business thor- 
oughfares, and the saving in horse or motor power to be 
effected by providing firm, smooth driveways. The opposi- 
tion will score a point by establishing that the development 
of a city is not measured by the growth of its population. 
The resources in a town of ten thousand factory opera- 
tives and their families are less than would be looked for 
in a suburb of a thousand homes supported by large in- 
comes. Again, a town of five thousand operatives employed 
in the manufacture of traction engines, or other products in- 
volving large use of the streets, might require, as a matter 
of public economy, solid and expensive roadbeds. But the 
question, as often happens, will not be argued expertly, or 
settled through any yielding of the opposition. By major 
vote, the motion to issue bonds will be adopted, or defeated, 
and the town will remain divided perhaps for years on the 
wisdom or equity of the project. 

The major premise as a law or principle is established gen- 
erally from observation and by induction. The first sentence 
in our stock example, “All men are mortal,” is an inferred, 
not demonstrated, truth. We induce the judgment, intuitively 
from instances and experience, that the human constitution is 
of a sort that must succumb to eventual decay. There can be 
no argument against the soundness of this conclusion. Yet 
violent exception is sometimes taken to principles brought for- 
ward as established by this process, as even yet to the dogma 
of evolution, and of the descent of man. The debate then 
goes over from the minor premise, which held it solely in the 


ARGUMENTATION 225 


example studied, to the major. And, oftener than all, there is 
no end of gratuitous and even bickering contention everywhere, 
while unconsidered assumptions are treated as major premises. 

We will now choose an instance from the feminine side of 
life as matter for our second example of argumentation. Two 
students in a woman’s college engage in a dispute concerning 
just expenditures for a lady’s wardrobe. One of them is 
greatly disturbed over the refusal, from a relative who is her 
guardian, of her request for a new dinner gown. Her room- 
mate approves his decision, and the controversy grows loud 
and warm. “You have no need away from home society of 
fresh party clothes,” her censurer insists. “But girls shut up 
in school have some claims they would not urge at home,” is 
the querulous rejoinder. Class friends who overhear come in 
from the corridor, the discussion grows more formal and con- 
sidered, and, after a few exchanges of argument between the 
principal debaters, becomes general. 

Forgetting the two major premises that they have just 
formulated incidentally, the contestants prepare to defend their 
positions more fundamentally. The aggrieved young lady, 
taking up the burden of a true affirmative, is the first to speak. 
With less animus, and with ideas which go considerably be- 
yond her personal convictions,—since she is now trying to 
bolster up a cause, she reopens the case substantially in these 
terms: 


In the divisions of social function, woman is the 
guardian and promoter of public taste. It is man’s part 
to provide the means. The constant changes in the fash- 
ions of woman’s dress, though often ridiculed, furnish 
the chief means of exercising and improving her artistic 
sense. Nothing so benumbs her sensitiveness and defeats 
her growth as to be forced to wear and contemplate staled 
modes from day to day. All young women who belong 
to refined families should refresh their minds with new 
forms before they tire too much of what is old. 

I hold also that women, as alone gifted with an acute 
sense of form and color, should be sole judges of the time 
as well as the extent of changes in their personal attire. 
They should not be subject to arbitrary denials. The right 
to gratify the demands of taste, when all the daughters of 
a household have come to years of understanding, should 


226 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


be vested in each member independently. The head of 
the family, or his representative, cannot be expected to act 
wisely or even justly in dealing with the cravings of the 
individual mind. All this, as I understand, belongs to the 
doctrine called Feminism, with which I consider myself 
mainly in accord. 


This young lady has had time to fortify herself a little, and 
in the first paragraph expresses approximately the major prin- 
ciple vaguely in the minds of both when they began to argue. 
That women are socially commissioned to express their tastes 
within reasonable and practicable limits, in personal attire and 
in the home, is a good working assumption. The minor prem- 
ise—the desire of this young lady to express her taste in the 
form requested—was the point originally in question. 

But what the speaker attempts to add to the major principle, 
in her next paragraph, is at least surprising. She asserts in 
effect that the extent to which taste and cost may govern in 
the replenishment of a lady’s wardrobe is a matter to be left 
for taste to judge. In other words, while the first paragraph 
formulates a principle holding good for society, in kind, this 
affirms that it holds good without limit in degree. Questions 
of ways and means, and of justice to rival claimants, can have 
no place. Of course, debate upon such an issue would be 
preposterous. Yet this is a fair example of what happens in 
unconsidered, unguarded disputation. It reminds one of the 
ground taken by a senior in a college of science, when, arguing 
for the drama, he asserted in all seriousness that the theater 
was an out and out moral force, always increasing in efficacy, 
and destined one day to accomplish the moral regeneration of 
the world. 

The second young lady, collecting herself in preparation to 
repeat and strengthen her former arguments, does not notice 
that the minor premise has been withdrawn. Her roommate, to 
avoid seeming, on the entry of outsiders, to argue for herself 
personally, has taken refuge behind all womanhood at large. 
The chance reference at the close of the speech just made, 
which commits her friend doubtfully to feminism, has stirred 
the ire of the next speaker. She must needs first pay her 
respects to that: 


ARGUMENTATION 227 


Feminism is the shameless name of self-seeking for 
womankind. Self-seeking is nowhere a virtue, everywhere 
a vice. It defeats character-building, makes its victim 
conspicuous to everybody, and fails of its purpose at the 
end. It aims to gain the whole world and loses its own 
soul. When any man, or woman, or nation sets up a cam- 
paign of self-aggrandizement, such campaign ipso facto 
is doomed to failure. Woman has won her place, not by 
might or by power, but through her graces by the grace 
of God. The moment she gets what she wishes, by ex- 
torting it, she will obtain only what she deserves, what 
she gives an equivalent for. She gets now what the world 
is pleased to deceive itself into believing she deserves, and 
all in spite of her real desert. Feminism will take away 
from fathers, brothers, lovers, and even guardians the 
chivalrous privilege of giving. Will it ever get fine clothes 
for cooks and washerwomen? 

If this were a world devoted merely, as the Greeks 
dreamed, to the service of beauty, the doctrines just laid 
down would be pleasing to all of us. But two thousand 
years of history prove that the Greeks were wrong. 
There is beauty in the world, and it has its claims, but 
its claims are neither fundamental nor paramount. There 
are few homes in America or other countries in which 
stern needs do not have precedence of all demands of 
taste. All rights and privileges, we are told, are based 
upon obligations. All who receive must at some time or 
sometimes give. I do not feel that I am satisfying or 
have ever satisfied any part of this obligation. I am 
anxious not recklessly to increase its claims. A large 
share of the wealth produced in this country is spent on the 
adornment of its women. I wish it were possible for 
all our womanhood to be clothed not only comfortably 
but elegantly. But three-fifths of the women in America 
and everywhere besides are denied all chance to gratify 
their tastes by dress. The cost of the clothes and finery 
that the remaining two-fifths enjoy is vastly beyond their 
deserts or worth. I do not wish to be classed with these 
two-fifths of my sex. I do not crave any enlargement of 
my rights. I would be of those who enjoy even their 


obligations. 


Following these suggestive sentences, one of the outsiders at- 
tempts rebuttal, in this vein: 


For my part, I do not see where the obligations that 
go with privilege come from. I do not think or feel that 


228 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


the existing order is sacred. I have never consented to 
it. I do not consider my rights or advantages satisfying 
or even interesting. I find myself here in the world by 
no wish or approval of my own. I am not grateful for 
existence. I do not feel in debt to anybody, certainly 
not to what is called society. The order of things which 
fixed me here on this planet is under obligation to support 
me here on my own terms. If I conform to the usual 
social laws, my debt is paid. I cost society nothing. 
Why should I render it anything? It does not contribute 
to my expenses. Why should it abridge my wants? 


So the discussion might go on endlessly, with everybody 
befogged as to the main issue, and arguing, each one against 
the last, or on something incidentally disapproved. What is 
needed to save the debate is a clear-headed mentor, who knows 
the rules, and can guide the discussion along right lines. We 
may imagine such an adviser present, called upon for counsel, 
and responding with comments and directions such as these: 


Quite evidently little good can come from debating over 
a dead issue. The original case, whether our friend is 
to have her party gown, has already been settled, as I 
understand, by authority outside of court. But academic 
questions are more or less fascinating, and this one, with 
certain changes, might be argued with some profit. So 
far as I have heard it, I should judge it only negatively 
useful,—I mean, as an example of “how not to do it.” 
The first thing necessary in standard argumentation is to 
have a plain, unequivocal proposition to debate about. 
Now, granting that the matter which you have been argu- 
ing over were worth while, which, mind you, I do not 
concede, you might phrase it thus, “Resolved, that women 
have a native right to spend all the money, for the gratifi- 
cation of taste, that they can command.” Or it would per- 
haps be fairer to both sides to state it in the form of a 
question: “Are women entitled, because they are women, 
to expend upon the demands of taste all means available?” 

But I suspect most of us feel that all this is trivial, that 
we have not gone deep enough to reach the heart of the 
matter. Is not this more nearly what you have wished 
to argue? “Is their share in the profits of society, placed 
at the disposal of cultivated and uncultivated women alike 
for the gratification of personal tastes, greater or less than 
is consistent with public policy?” In this form the ques- 


ARGUMENTATION 


tion can be discussed to some effect. But it will call for 
original and independent thinking, as well as statistics 
and authorities. Personal opinions and preferences can 
have no bearing. Whether I incline or do not incline to 
feminism is not in the least material. Nothing but argu- 
ment, open reasoning, is in order. Nothing is argument 
that in itself admits of argument. Only ascertained facts, 
and self-evident principles, can be used. Then, we must 
remember that volubility, unction, and sharpness of repar- 
tee are not in themselves material. It is better to argue 
falteringly with soundness on a definite issue, than to 
scale the heights of eloquence when there is no question 
before the house. 

It is of course untrue that no one of us owes society 
anything. It is estimated that the cost of rearing a young 
lady of “refined family” is not less than $25,000. This 
amount of its capital is invested by society, for society, 
in each of us. Now society, though abstract in name, 
is a very concrete thing. It means primarily the organized 
public in which we live, not only free from molestation, 
but in daily ease and comfort. Yet society, seeming to 
demand nothing, has the right to exact everybody’s all. 
Society means our fathers and mothers, everybody’s father 
and mother, who, with all their resources and influence, 
stand ready to give their lives to prevent a public enemy 
from destroying us, or from limiting the possibilities of 
our future. We are here at this moment because the 
fathers of other young women, denied in their day what 
we enjoy, gave their all to their country, to the collective 
society of their time. 

It is now generally recognized that wealth, or the for- 
tunes of the rich, do not belong to individuals, but to 
society at large. Those who are said to possess it hold 
it only in trust. Society has been built up by men who 
have fought to make it possible. But they did not fight 
for themselves. They fought for their mothers, who 
bred them to manliness, they fought for their wives, who 
made their homes. So woman is entitled to somewhat, 
a large somewhat, of the wealth which society acquires, 
not as a right merely, but also as a tribute. 

What society asks of woman in return is that she retain 
warrant for man’s idealization. It is this idealization 
that has advanced civilization hitherto. To permit men 
to lose their ideals of womanhood would mean the de- 
cline and fall of the ruling races, and the displacement 
of these by another or others which, through two thou- 
sand years of struggle, might only repeat the unhopeful 


229 


230 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


process. We live in an era of cheapened and cheapening 
womanhood. We have concerns more vital than the culti- 
vation of taste in clothes. The ennobling satisfactions 
of life come from within. Men look, most of all, to 
women to exemplify this truth. 


The complications and confusion of this example are not 
greater than are likely to arise in the course of an ordinary 
school debate. Nor is the naive frequency of assertions and 
assumptions put forward in it as arguments or proofs un- 
usual. Many of these, it may be noted, go back to the fault 
of Hasty Generalization. We go to Scotland or Holland, 
where there are showers the first day and the second, and we 
say, “What a queer country! It rains every day,” or, “It rains 
every Friday here.” We do not of course say this from an 
actual conviction. Our minds would like to generalize, and we 
half-playfully indulge them. But we draw many conclusions 
in all seriousness that are essentially as foolish, and not seldom 
do it in argument. Inductions should neither be ventured nor 
accepted save when we are sure that all possible instances 
agree with those personally reported or observed. 

Sometimes, in the progress of a demonstration, we think 
or feel that we have established our principle, and without 
warrant speak of it as proved. A man writes a text-book on 
grammar which is intended to make the subject fascinating to 
every learner. He directs the teacher how to administer it, 
step by step, and is thus, as he thinks, supplying proofs of its 
efficiency. But after half-a-dozen such steps are detailed, he 
cautions the teacher lest the growing fondness for grammar, 
among his pupils, interfere with interest in their other work. 
This growing fondness, which as yet is only promised, he asks 
his reader to accept as already in existence, though he has been 
merely telling how a trial might be made. He has introduced 
no evidence whatever, and perhaps has never put his method 
to the test This species of error is called Begging the 
Question. 

It is essential that argumentation should be inspired by genu- 
ine belief in the principles avowed. If it is not an expression 
of the real sentiments or opinions of those engaging in it, it 


1 This is not an imagined example, but outlines the history of an actual case. 


ARGUMENTATION 231 


is of doubtful ethics and value. We should beware of affirming 
convictions, for any purpose, that we do not feel. To argue 
from less than persuasion of truth, and for mere training, 
gives practice in pretense, and in false thinking. The sense 
of right should not be dulled, but sharpened. We should learn 
to be exact and instant in distinctions of the sort which simu- 
lated argumentation tends to belittle, or at least confuse. 

To ensure helpful and satisfying debates, there should be 
a capable presiding officer, to act as judge. He should rule 
out improper evidence, sum arguments, and, if practicable, 
should express and explain his opinion as to which side of the 
question has been better handled. Such a moderator, in the 
discussion first outlined, would have pointed out that the statis- 
tics of the affirmative were not obtained from cities of the 
same class as the one in question, and that sales reported were 
not, so far as shown, of improved property more than of un- 
improved. The negative, in turn, should not have been left 
in the belief that its reference to revolutions was valid reason- 
ing, or that radicalism and conservatism forever contend with- 
out preponderance of advantage on either side. All progress 
comes by prevailments of those proposing change over the ad- 
vocates of a static policy. The conservative elements are the 
weight in the momentum of advance. The radical elements 
are the determining factor of its speed. 


EXERCISES 


1. Recall some recent discussion in which you were engaged, 
and make a report of the question at issue, and the chief argu- 
ments on each side. Formulate the major and the minor premise, 
note whether the burden of proof was assumed by the right party, 
and show whether any conclusion was or was not rightly estab- 
lished by the arguments employed. 

2. Give an observed example of Hasty Generalization. 

3. In the movement against fraternities in high schools, what 
is the major premise? Outline the syllogism, and anticipate the 
chief arguments on each side. 

4. Were the question of the classics as against the modern 
languages to be argued anew, which side would be affirmative? 
What would be the best arguments it could offer? 


232 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


5. Detail an instance, from observation, of Begging the 
Question. 

6. Formulate for debate the question of making all subjects 
of high school study elective. Show what major premise would 
need to be established, and what arguments would be valid on 
either side. 

7. Formulate the syllogism, and debate the question of reliev- 
ing girls from the requirement of laboratory work in chemistry. 

8. Resolved that fashions in the dress of men as well as of 
women should not be copied from foreign models. Develop the 
arguments for the affirmative side. 

9g. Resolved that every boy should learn a trade or craft. 

10. Resolved that practice in reporting and other writing for 
the papers offers the best preparation for a literary career. 

11. Analyze Tolstoy’s Napoleon’s Campaign in Russia, and sum- 
marize his arguments, and conclusions. 

12. What indubitable facts and self-evident principles do you 
find in the paragraphs (pp. 221, 222) of the second speaker? 

13. Select one of your exercises in Exposition, and show how, 
if the fundamental notion developed in it were denied, you might 
adapt and utilize some of the same matter in Argumentation. 

14. Show whether all of the allegations (pp. 228-230) of the 
last speaker are to be accepted as axioms or facts. 

15. Describe the sword called tesak. 


CHAPTER XXIII 
NARRATION BY IMAGINATIVE INFERENCE 


HE sum of rhetorical endeavor, to quote a dictum of 
Professor Brewster, includes “making clear the idea, 
and making it take.” But it is possible to make one’s meaning 
“taking” as well as “clear,” yet fail of the result at which one 
aims. Professor Brewster undoubtedly assumes that to write 
takingly is also to write effectively. We pass now to the prob- 
lems of making written communication taking, that is, of charg- 
ing it with qualities that will engage the attention and ensure 
the interest of the reader. 

Half a century and more ago, literary writing was addressed 
to the literary public. Rhetorical endeavor did not need to 
be taking, and generally indeed was not. The Nation, the 
Atlantic Monthly, and the North American Review set the 
standard for cultivated folk. Less privileged people found 
the contents of such magazines and weeklies dry, and were 
duly supplied with books and periodicals of another kind, both 
elementary in language and sensational in ideas. This second 
class of readers has given place to a generation better educated 
and more intellectually alert, and the dime-novel and Fireside- 
Companion literature of their fathers has virtually disappeared. 
The contents of high-class weeklies and monthlies are now 
“taking” instead of dry, and can be read at large by those who 
will. On the other hand, people of more exclusive tastes have 
ceased to care greatly for authors of the toilsome and self- 
conscious school. So the literary writer of to-day addresses 
practically the whole reading public. His books and articles 
must bid for the interest of the educated and the common 
reader alike, and hold it equally, if need be, against the will 
of both. The technic of books has compounded with the technic 


of life, and assumed its power. 
233 


234 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


So the oral method, old as the race, of presenting events and 
incidents through imaginative inference, has become a literary 
mode. It is often more important to present a happening with 
vividness than with exact details. We can make the imagina- 
tion of the reader construct a scene that will be approximately 
correct, while we could not make it combine systematic parts, 
to form a whole, with the least success. The following will 
illustrate : 


Crossing a crevasse in the Klondike, one member of a 
party lost his footing and slid into the chasm. He shouted 
to those who stopped not to delay, as he could not be 
rescued. They went on, supposing that in an hour he 
would be dead. ‘Ten minutes later another party, fol- 
lowing, began to cross. The man below hailed them, and 
learned that they were provided with ropes, as his own 
company was not. Speedily he was again upon the trail, 
and overtook his companions as they were reaching a 
camp, just as his wife, now first learning that he had 
been left, sank screaming upon the snow. 


Here is an incident of Alaskan history which concerned two 
lives supremely, yet is condensed into a single paragraph. Be- 
cause of its human interest, the old-time narrator would have 
felt bound to set forth how the mishap occurred, how the 
crevasse looked, and how the man was lifted out. Responding 
to its human interest more naturally and simply, the modern 
narrator leaves these things out. They are all, in effect, sup- 
plied vividly by imagination as we read. And imagination 
is kindled by the mischance told of in the first sentence, and 
is intensified by the appeal of emotion in the last. 

The bare recital of happenings like these forces us back upon 
our experiences of life, and makes us construct, from mate- 
rials of our own, a pictorial realization of what is told. If 
we have never seen glaciers or a crevasse, we satisfy ourselves 
with conceptions that come up as the nearest substitutes, out of 
our minds, and go on with the picture. Were we unable to 
imagine anything like mountains or ice-fields, we should still 
make up a scene that would represent the incident. In any 
case, the product, if inexact, would be real and living to us. 

Why is not the insistence of the man that his companions 


NARRATION BY IMAGINATIVE INFERENCE 235 


leave him and save themselves an appeal of character? It is 
truly in nature and in possibilities an “appeal of character 
in degree.” But it is not permitted to serve as an appeal of 
this kind here. Imagination has been engaged already by the 
awful mishap. Our interest in the victim is merely human, 
general, and does not concern itself with his individuality. 
Any other member of the company, falling similarly, would 
have affected the rest in the same manner. After the man is 
rescued, we do not gain acquaintance with him, nor was it 
intended that we should gain an acquaintance with him, as a 
personality. His falling into the crevasse is plainly the cir- 
cumstance that makes the scene rise before our minds. 

We have thus another species of imaginative appeals. Since 
they deal, not with character or with mood, but with outside 
affairs or happenings, they may be styled Imaginative Appeals 
of Incident. A simpler example will make this clear: 


I happened to look up, and saw my sabre, which was 
suspended from the wall, swinging vigorously. I dashed 
downstairs and out of doors, since the building was of 
brick, and cheaply and unsubstantially constructed. 


It is evident that the reason given by the speaker here is not 
the reason for his going down stairs hastily or at all. The 
explanation of his act lies in the “Common Cause,” which be- 
trays itself in the swinging of the sword, and threatens the 
lives of all who remain within the building. The diagram 
used (p. 161) for characterization will, with slight changes, 
show the behavior of imagination here: 


SPHERE OF IMAGINA- COMMON DANGER 
TION AND THE INTEL- i EMOFIONALLY 
LECTUAL LIFE CA VISUALIZED 


MATERIAL SPHERE OF 
THE SENSES AND THE 
PHYSICAL LIFE 





236 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


The imaginative appeals employed in literature are various 
and often powerful. These are typical examples: 


Mr. Dyce’s partner, Mr. Cleland, who smelt of cloves 
and did not care for tea. 


On the kitchen porch at the side of a vacant house, 
close to the door where the mat once was, lay week after 
week a half-starved hunting dog. It was midsummer, 
July was nearly spent, and the grass on the lawn had 
not been mowed that year. 


A woman bending over him placed a reluctant hand upon 
his heart. “He does not die yet, this bandit they have 
eee us,” she remarked to a companion busy behind 

er. 

The wounded man opened his eyes very widely and 
winked. The Miss Maruja started back in alarm and 
turned towards the little Sister Tula. 

“Gertrude!” cried Anthony Eccles, in a voice which 
charged the curt word with a long story. 


In the first quotation, the appeal of course betrays the tippler. 
But, as in the first illustration of this chapter, our imaginations 
are almost wholly employed with emotional and visual infer- 
ences of the fact, and do not go on to employ themselves — 
especially with the personality. In the second example, the 
tragedy of the empty house slowly constructs itself before our 
fancy. The home-life has been broken up by the death of 
some member of the household, the family has dispersed, the 
furniture disposed of, and the dog sold or given away to 
another master. But fondness for the old life forestalls de- 
votion to the new, and the doting servant waits here for the 
sound of a voice that never calls. In the third illustration, 
the bandit is plainly a lover, who finds himself here with hopes 
of something other and further than recovery from his hurts. 

But the method of life, as a rule, forces “the effect intended” 
even more potently upon our imagination. There are number- 
less illustrations: 


What do I know about him? We came from the same 
town in Ohio, and worked clerking together for some time. 
We each got seventy dollars a month, but he spent half 


NARRATION BY IMAGINATIVE INFERENCE 237 


as much more. The last time I saw him, he was riding 
into town on a buckboard, with men standing on the axles. 
He was sitting with a man whose left hand was attached 
to the handcuffs he wore. The men on the axles were some 
of the posse who ran him down. 

Do you know what they did with him? 

Oh, yes, I know. 


Last week the manager of the quarry saw his little girl, 
six years old, coming towards him with two pails, one in 
each hand, almost full of nitroglycerine. He called to her 
not to hurry, and not to stumble, and he would meet her. 
When she came up, he told her to set the pails down 
carefully. Then, with face still white, he took the little 
thing up in his arms and walked towards home, calling to 
one of the gang who were watching at a distance to carry 
the pails back to the storehouse, and see that it was kept 
locked thereafter. None of the men worked any more 
that day. 


A woman of about thirty, with a girl of eight, her 
daughter probably, stopped me in front of the University 
grounds to-day, to ask where she might find a professor 
of chemistry. “I have a capsule,” she said with suppressed 
excitement, “which I wish to have some one analyze.” 


She would marry the fellow in spite of everybody. 
How she gets on nobody knows. Have you noticed that 
the diamonds are all gone from her rings? 


What have you been doing? Your face is all bloody. 
Yes, Mother, I threw a stone at Jim Huff and it hit him. 


“T suppose you know what you have got in your throat,” 
the doctor said, as he drew the wooden case of an ominous- 
looking phial from his waistcoat pocket. 


The telltale spots on the throat are “effects given,” effects 
of the ‘“‘common cause” which is fast bringing on the critical 
stage in an attack of diphtheria. From the presence of this 
cause, the imagination of the patient and of others anticipates 
the pain and risks of illness. The devotion of the wife who 
sells her diamonds for family needs cannot be told at better 
length. The startling reticence of the man concerning the 
career and fate of his former friend, whom he saw in the 
hands of the sheriff, is eloquent beyond the might of words. 
To supply the parts here left out would, in each case, spoil 


238 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


all. Literature is beginning to take over the pithiness and 
energy of oral utterance that the race doubtless achieved even 
in the generations of its childhood. Dante set the example, six 
hundred years ago, with his single line, 


Quel giorno pit non vi leggemmo avante, 


and we praise it, supposing it famous because it is merely a 
single line, and not bothering to inquire about the principle 
that would enable anybody not a Dante to do the like. We 
perhaps still crave the academic satisfaction of literalizing, in 
proper or polished periods, some moving incident. We can 
point to the examples in Prescott’s Conquest of Mexico, and 
Dana’s Two Years Before the Mast. Their works of course 
are classics, as is Bancroft’s History. But were these authors 
living now, they would write at times more naturally and 
feelingly—using the method of appeals—though doubtless with 
no less care. 

We little realize the extent to which life abounds in imagina- 
tive inferences or anticipations of good and ill. The turn of 
the market brings visions of poverty, or of. wealth. The 
drought of spring makes the farmer see his crops in midsum- 
mer dying for thirst. Phylloxera inspires pictures of wasted 
vineyards. From some unconscious hint, the lover infers the 
preference of his inamorata, and through it sees the vista of his 
happiness. By inadvertent appeals of incident, as interpreted 
by professional or other detectives, the secrets of conduct are 
laid bare. Many experiences of personal suffering are told in 
essence by the same means. 

The father of the present writer narrowly escaped death, 
some years ago, in a head-on railway collision. He was pinned 
down under a seat, covered with a mass of wreckage, and suf- 
fered fractures of an arm and hideous bruises. For some 
months after, when asked concerning the nature and degree 
of the accident, and of his hurts, my father would bring out 
the coat, worn on the day of the disaster, the back of which 
was torn to shreds. This showing of the coat was not gen- 
erally accompanied by any explanation, and there were not 


1 We read no further in the book that day.—IJnferno, V. 138. 


NARRATION BY IMAGINATIVE INFERENCE 239 


often questions or comments from those who saw. Their 
imaginations were forced by the sight to picture the wearer 
face-down under the debris, with the mass of broken wheels 
and timbers doing their crushing and grinding work above, and 
with fellow victims dying near,—sixteen in all. 

Incident appeals, like appeals of character or of mood, may 
be of kind or of degree. The marks by which a physician 
diagnoses sickness are peculiarly of kind; those by which, in 
some turn for the worse, he presages a fatal termination, are 
generally of degree. The prospect of death, to most natures 
anywhere, is intensely visual. We are vastly more concerned, 
in the majority of cases, over the degree than the kind of in- 
cident. When one of our household is brought home un- 
conscious in an ambulance, we care nothing, until we know 
its extent, for the kind of injury. “Is it fatal?” “Is it very dan- 
gerous?” is all we ask. Later, when it is told that the mischief 
was done in an automobile or an elevator accident, we shall 
perhaps be able or content to listen. 

The forces of nature and their work, considered apart from 
the helplessness of men, furnish potent appeals to imagination. 
The mention of an earthquake that opens the ground for a 
quarter of a mile, or of the blast in a quarry that lifts off the 
brow of a mountain, compels a state of mental realization that 
constructs the scene. It is easy to compare cases of this kind 
with others like the following, which involve an element of hu- 
man sympathy: 


Two of our sailors being prostrate with fever, it was 
nothing strange that the engineer of our yacht turned 
pale as he watched the fall of the mercury in the glass. 
Nobody on board had ever seen the column descend so 
suddenly, or go so low. Besides, we were half-a-day’s 
sail from Barbados or any harbor. 


In this example, which is similar to others considered in the 
present chapter, the appeal to imagination is heightened by our 
uneasiness of mind for the persons on board the yacht, which, 
inadequately manned, must soon cope with the hurricane. But 
a like fall of mercury in the barometers at the weather station 
of Havana or Hong Kong, where there is security for all con- 


240 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


cerned, would serve as an appeal to imagination not much less 
powerful. 

Imaginative appeals of incident by no means fill so large 
a place in life as appeals of character, or even mood. The 
greatest interest and worth that we can know center in per- 
sonality. Hence appeals of character rank as the first of all 
materials in literature. Next in value follow human emotions 
and experiences, as indicated and communicated through ap- 
peals of mood. Lowest are to be classed happenings in the 
outer, material world, and, as expedients to betoken these, 
imaginative appeals of incident. All imaginative appeals, 
whether of character, incident or mood, are in nature, as we 
remember, of either degree or kind. 

In accord with these basic truths and modes, we may dis- 
tinguish three grades of worth in art and letters. The lowest 
values lie in the literature of incident, as in the adventure 
stories of childhood, Hewlett’s Dark Forest, and Shakespeare’s 
Comedy of Errors. We recognize as ranking above this level, 
the literature of character or personality as such, as in Last 
of the Mohicans, Richard Yea and Nay, and Shakespeare’s 
Richard III. Last and highest, we have personality in its 
spiritual effectuations, as in So Big, the prize novel of 1924, 
and Shakespeare’s Kent, and Prospero, and Hermione, and 
Imogen, and his Roman Portia. 

Appeals of incident, again, may be of the Cause Form, like 
our barometer examples, and force imagination to anticipate 
visually the consequences that are to follow. They may be of 
Effect Form, compelling imagination to realize and picture, 
from the destruction viewed, the action of the cause that has 
been at work. The track of a tornado, strewn with fragments 
of trees and buildings, makes us visualize, in the effect way, 
the processes of the storm. The vastness, the appalling enor- 
mity of the forces, appeal to our sense of the sublime, and 
induce the visual conception that we do not invite, and cannot 
suppress. On the other hand, the sight of a dark funnel-shaped 
cloud fills our minds, in the casual manner, with visual terror 
of the devastation that we know is on its way. The mind of 
the narrator, provided with both these means, will choose as his 
instinct for the stronger effect wisely or unwisely guides him. 


NARRATION BY IMAGINATIVE INFERENCE 241 


Pictorial reports of events in life and nature, told by imagina- 
tive appeals, make up the lore of neighborhoods, and still serve 
largely as a substitute for the literature of books. People 
listen spellbound while their friends tell of experiences in 
sickness, in fright, in danger. Hairbreadth escapes do not lose 
their visual charm even in maturest years. Imagination delights 
to construct from threatening conditions the catastrophe that 
did not follow. It seems more fond of supplying the suspended 
conclusion (p. 115), the cause being given, than of restoring 
the cause from effects the most suggestive and appalling. 

The great examples in literature seem to bear this out. One 
thinks at once of the Scylla and Charybdis of Homer and Virgil; 
of the terrors of Grendel and his mother; of the fire-drakes in 
Teutonic and northern myths; of the visions of power making 
for torment or for cleansing, in Dante’s poem; and of the por- 
tentous spectacles in Milton’s Paradise Lost. It is manifestly 
a favorite mode in fiction. From childhood we share with 
Crusoe his dismay at sight of the footprint upon the sand. 
Poe amuses his fancy, in The Pit and the Pendulum, with a 
chamber of threatened horrors. At one stage his victim, 
strapped prostrate upon a frame nailed to the floor, watches the 
thirty-foot sweep of a mighty pendulum vibrating across his 
body, and carrying a razor edge that each stroke brings nearer 
and nearer to his heart: 


It might have been half an hour, perhaps even an hour 
—for I could take but imperfect note of time—before 
I again cast my eyes upward. What I then saw con- 
founded and amazed me. The sweep of the pendulum 
had increased in extent by nearly a yard. As a natural 
consequence its velocity was also much greater. But 
what mainly disturbed me was the idea that it had 
descended. I now observed—with what horror it is need- 
less to say—that its nether extremity was formed of a 
crescent of glittering steel, about a foot in length from 
horn to horn; the horns upward, and the under edge evi- 
dently as keen as that of a razor. Like a razor also, 
it seemed massy and heavy, tapering from edge into a solid 
and broad structure above. It was appended to a weighty 
rod of brass, and the whole hissed as it swung through 
the air. 


242 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


It must be borne in mind that imaginative appeals of in- 
cident, in all these cases, are parts or means of narration, and 
the vital parts. We often tell things, not because of any value 
in the things, that we may enjoy the strange and sure effec- 
tiveness of the telling. Senseless stories are retailed again 
and again merely to give the hearer the pleasure of seeing a 
whole truth, a most unexpected truth, spread out vividly, from 
a single “effect given,” in his imagination,—as in this: “Oh, 
Dick,” cried his wife breathless as she rushed into her hus- 
band’s office, “I have lost my diamond ring.” “It’s all right, 
Bess,” he answered, “I found it in my trousers pocket.” Ap- 
peals like this are the logarithms of the narrative process. It 
is stupid and absurd to say, after reporting that a trolley wire 
has dropped upon a crowded crossing, that injuries follow. 
The mind would rather frame a conclusion than suffer it to be 
mechanically obtruded. Imaginative appeals are greater in 
degree than logarithms, which merely abbreviate operations 
that are sure but tiresome. Imaginative appeals of incident, 
if of degree, impart intensity which prolonged narration would 
inevitably defeat. 

Imaginative appeals should be distinguished, technically, from 
Signs. A sign proves the existence of some quality or cause. 
It is in nature logical only, and occasions an intellectual rather 
than an emotional or imaginative inference. We prognosti- 
cate changes of the weather by signs, which, however, if we 
have friends in exposure, or crops to spoil, become imaginative 
appeals of incident. The spots of typhus may, to the over- 
worked physician, be merely signs, but will be infinitely more 
than signs to the patient and his family. An alarm of fire is 
perhaps never a sign to the horses at the engine house, or to 
the firemen, or to anybody. It is not a signal, but an alarm 
indeed, a sheer appeal to imagination, a call for help against 
a public enemy. Badges are often signs. But the Iron or the 
Victoria Cross is something more. It is, typically, and it is 
designed to be, an appeal of incident, in degree, to imagination. 


NARRATION BY IMAGINATIVE INFERENCE 243 


EXERCISES 


1. Show how you have lately used, inadvertently, an imagina- 
tive appeal of incident in reporting some experience or event. 
Present this in proper literary form. 

2. Report a similar example from your recent reading. 

3. Recall from observation some experience or incident that 
seems to require treatment in the Cause manner, and make the 
study. 

4. Bring back to mind similarly matters that can best be pre- 
sented in the Effect way, and present these in literary form. 

5. What striking examples of character ‘appeals’ have been 
noted since studies in direct characterization were finished? Pre- 
pare two of these as fresh studies in personality. 

6. What notable illustrations of narration, in any of the six 
forms, have been observed in recent reading? Make a critical 
appreciation or comparison of these. 

7. Describe, from cut in Webster’s International Dictionary, 
the musical instrument known as the crowd. 

8. Recall some happening that calls for an incident appeal 
of degree to express it, and give the treatment. 

g. In contrast with this, present an incident that requires, to 
communicate it, an imaginative appeal of kind. 

to. Show, by an example from Robinson Crusoe, how Defoe 
uses imaginative appeals of incident as the means of narration. 

11. Report similarly, by examples from The Black Arrow, what 
use Stevenson makes of the same expedient. 

12. What author lately read seems to show the most and 
strongest “taking” qualities? In three or four paragraphs of 
criticism and appreciation, discuss and give reasons. 


CHAPTER XXIV 
DESCRIPTION BY NARRATION 


T is evident, from studies in earlier chapters, that the atten- 

tion of the reader is taxed less seriously in narration than 
in description. Narration has movement, and progress, and 
these assist the fancy. But a description involving several 
elements, to be kept in fixity while further details are added, 
will hardly be effective unless assisted co-operatively by the 
imaging powers of the person or audience addressed. 

Some art is therefore needed to make a long or complex de- 
scription “taking.” In fact, treatments less detailed will often 
necessitate the importation of interest from outside the theme. 
We must add to the task of describing a natural bridge or a 
colonial farmstead the larger one of beguiling the time and 
keeping our reader from the expectation of being bored or 
burdened. The whole must indeed be done before he has be- 
come aware of our effort or his own. 

Our attention will be more readily engaged if the object 
to be presented can be shown progressively, in the important 
steps or stages of construction. We can describe the queer 
spectacles in use a century ago by narrating how the maker, 
beginning with rectangular lenses, cut the four corners of 
each octagonally, and mounted them with a silver frame and 
bows of squared wire, the ends of the bows being each bent and 
soldered into a small loop. We can present the appearance 
of an old black-letter Bible through mention of its having 
been bound literally in boards, planed and bevelled in a join- 
er’s shop, with the marks of the dull tool still showing on the 
wood where the brown leather, drawn tightly over the edges, 
has been worn away at the corners and next the brazen clasps. 
Or, we can hold the reader’s thought to the description of the 
horse-chestnut blossom by narrating how, in a vitagraphic rep- 


resentation of its growth, it appears first as a flesh-white bud, 
244 


DESCRIPTION BY NARRATION 245 


shaped like the fingers of a hand gathered about the thumb, 
which quickly opens, bends backward, and swells into a form 
resembling a cluster of hyacinth flowers. 

When the object to be presented is large, the Process Method 
is still more economic of the reader’s mental energy. A de- 
scription of the tunnels under the Hudson and the Detroit 
River would be hard to follow if undertaken in the usual 
meticulous and complicated way. Presented by parts, and 
narrated in the process of combining the parts into a whole, 
they are not so taxing. The product, besides, will remain 
longer and more vividly in memory. The manner of treatment 
would be after this sort: 


In the work of tunneling the 2600 feet between the 
shores of the Detroit River, the first task was to dredge 
out a trench, forty-five feet below the bed of the channel, 
and then to drive piles at the bottom of the excavation. On 
the piles as a foundation, double tubes of steel, each 
twenty-three feet in diameter, and in sections 260 feet long, 
were sunk, and bolted together by divers. Each section of 
these double tubes was now enclosed in concrete and cov- 
ered with clay and broken stones, until all of the ten sec- 
tions had been made solid under the swift current of the 
river. The interior of each tube was next encased in 
cement, and squared to the proportions necessary for the 
passage of railway trains.1 


Really no other than the process manner could have been 
employed successfully here, and the report of the engineers 
remains the best description of the product. The method is as 
old as the literature of the race, and comes down to us per- 
haps from an age much earlier. It is essentially the manner 
in which Homer (Iliad IV. 105-111) described to his listeners 
the bow of Pandarus: 


Straightway he unsheathed his polished bow made from 
the horns of a fleet wild goat which, issuing from a rock, 


1 This paragraph is clearly an example of Narration, being a detailed state- 
ment of steps or stages in an actual construction. To make it over into a 
specimen of Explanation. we should need to exchange facts for suggestions, to 
alter the history into a letter of directions. The vital part of the opening sen- 
tence would then run, “The first task would be to dredge out,” etc. So of 
the quotation below, from Homer, which some critics would classify as a 
plain case of ‘‘Exposition.” 


246 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


he had himself, lying once upon a time in wait, smitten 
and hit upon the breast, so that it fell backward along 
the rock. From its head were grown horns of sixteen 
palms in length; and these the artificer fitted together skil- 
fully, polished well the whole, and set on it a tip of gold. 


While it is by no means clear that Homer intended the 
passage to serve the purpose claimed for it (Laocoon, XVI) by 
Lessing, the principle used in it is true. The audience addressed 
was undoubtedly familiar with this sort of bow, and did not 
need to have it “described” for knowledge. The passage of 
course 1s valueless as description to those unacquainted with 
the shape of the horns, since, without knowledge of the type- 
lines which they express, it is impossible to conceive the product 
formed from them. Scholars indeed are by no means agreed 
as to the species of goat from which the horns were taken. 
Moreover, as an example of the process-mode, it is unsatisfy- 
ing, since the author does not enlighten us as to the means 
by which the horns were “fitted together” with requisite firm- 
ness, or where the maker “set” the tip of gold. But the method, 
even if the product be profitless, compels the attention and in- 
terest of the reader. Homer’s description of the shield forged 
by Hephaistos (Iliad XVII. 468-608), for Achilles, is a much 
more defective illustration of the process-manner, since in no 
particular is the execution of the marvel detailed to us. 

We see how the method of narrating the construction can 
be used in describing many objects that must often be pre- 
sented, and perhaps explained, without picture or model. So 
might be made clear to the unmechanical mind, the instruments 
of wireless telegraphy, or forms of the aeroplane, by giving 
the history and combination of appliances. This, we recognize, 
is sometimes the method of the popular lecturer. 

Another manner of inveigling attention, and of lightening the 
burden of those who read by force of will, may be called the 
Historical. Any means by which the mind is held to an object 
until imagination has done its utmost of realization, is good 
to use. By the method of history, Homer, in speaking of 
Agamemnon’s sceptre (Iliad II. 100-109), exalts the adversary 
of his hero by investing him with an emblem of sovereign 
power that has been borne by Zeus himself: 


DESCRIPTION BY NARRATION 247 


Then stood up Lord Agamemnon holding his sceptre, the 
one that Hephaistos had wrought curiously. Hephaistos 
had given it to Zeus sovereign son of Kronos, and Zeus 
in turn gave it to the Argos-slayer, messenger of the gods. 
And King Hermes gave it to Pelops the driver of steeds, 
but Pelops gave it to Atreus shepherd of hosts. And 
Atreus dying left it to Thyestes rich in flocks, and Thy- 
estes in turn left it for Agamemnon to wield, that, over 
many islands and all Argos, he might be lord. 


Here again nothing is told concerning the size or carving of 
the instrument, since a sceptre must have been a familiar object 
to audiences of the time. But, while no hint of appearance is 
given, the mind is held upon what it is forced to picture, and 
with increasing interest,—at least in the minds of Homeric 
hearers, until the object is wholly individualized and fixed. 

The modern manner of presenting subjects for description 
as having been in some sort of relation with noted or historic 
personages is not different in nature from the last example. 
The device is potent in the presentation of smaller as well as 
of larger objects. The description of a dress sword as a 
slender, grooved, three-cornered blade, in a white scabbard, 
with the flat hilt covered, on two sides, with mother-of-pearl 
plates, is assisted by imagination when we are told that it was 
once worn by the First Napoleon on state occasions. Haw- 
thorne often uses the historic method in this form. The fol- 
lowing, from “Howe’s Masquerade” (Twice Told Tales, p. 
272), is a characteristic illustration: 


The cupola is an octagon, with several windows, and a 
door opening upon the roof. From this station, as I 
pleased myself with imagining, Gage may have beheld 
his disastrous victory on Bunker Hill—unless one of the 
tri-mountains intervened—and Howe have marked the 
approaches of Washington’s besieging army; although 
the buildings since erected in the vicinity have shut out 
almost every object, save the steeple of the Old South, 
which seems almost within arm’s length. Descending from 
the cupola, I paused in the garret to observe the ponder- 
ous white-oak framework, so much more massive than 
the frames of modern houses, and thereby resembling an 
antique skeleton. The brick walls, the materials of which 
were imported from Holland, and the timbers of the man- 
sion, are still as sound as ever. 


248 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


It is remarkable how various are the allusions that the author 
has managed to group together in this passage. That he was 
in some degree aware of the art and method he was using 
appears probable from his qualifying parenthesis concerning 
Gage. It seems certain that Bunker Hill was not in sight from 
the Province House, more than were Washington’s movements, 
behind Beacon Hill, in and about Cambridge. The personal 
turn is another of Hawthorne’s secrets. No writer of his 
time better understood the help to fancy of making a reader 
look through another’s eyes. 

When a subject is too complex or tremendous to be ade- 
quately treated, without division, it can be presented in prac- 
ticable parts incidentally while the author narrates the manner 
of his coming into acquaintance with each one. To illustrate 
this crowning mode, we shall study the first chapter of De 
Amicis’s Constantinople. No problem in the whole field of 
description is more intricate or greater. Men of rare fame 
had attempted the task with varying success. De Amicis, with 
their results before him, and despairing of power to hold the 
reader to the infinite array of particulars, uses pretended nar- 
ration, while really describing all that can be told. To make 
us realize the rest, he presents, most daringly and potently of 
all, the sentiments and experiences that possess him as his 
ship approaches and enters the Golden Horn. 

All of De Amicis’s writings are intensely personal, and he 
begins (p. 318) with using his personality to arouse the reader, 
and make him more agog over Constantinople, for his author’s 
sake, than for his own. This purpose governs through the 
first three paragraphs. In the fourth and the fifth, De Amicis 
enlarges upon the coming spectacle, and quotes the praises 
of its glory from other enthusiasts, including the sailors of his 
ship, who have preceded him. 

At what hour De Amicis, on his own visit, entered Con- 
stantinople, we do not know. He chooses, very acutely, to 
bring his readers to it in the morning. Holding us with this 
expectation, he proceeds in his next paragraph (pp. 320, 321) 
to present to us his companions, and gives us, in the one fol- 
lowing, the mood of the company and of the hour. Then, still 
more ingeniously, he makes his approach to the city (p. 322), 


DESCRIPTION BY NARRATION 249 


after sunrise, to have been enshrouded in fog. This irks us, 
adding to the momentum of our interest by delay. Expecting 
to carry us easily by this purpose, the author adventures de- 
tailing, in two deliberate paragraphs, the configuration of the 
city and its environs. This finished, he permits us (p. 324) our 
first glimpse of Stamboul. 

The plan of showing single views, or parts of views, through 
openings in the fog, is most artistic and effectual. We can 
best join elements together when presented thus separately 
and slowly. This plan is carried forward until the author be- 
gins to adjust and settle the other cities (p. 327) in our thought. 
This done, he comes back to the main task, for which he 
prepares us (p. 328) while the ship is halted. The climax 
is thus approached, in the manner of narration, until we reach 
and grow into the final scene. Here the crowning paragraph 
(pp. 329-331), on which the author spends his utmost of 
strength and skill, begins and ends in the personal mode. The 
author can only confess to the causal influences that oppress 
him, and then leaves the case, so to speak, on our literary con- 
science. He manages the descent from his climax by making 
us observe, in a paragraph of five lines, the emotion of his 
companions. Even the impassive English clergyman, whom 
we suspect he has included in the company for this very pur- 
pose, has at last parted with his insensibility, and murmurs, 
though for his own ear only, “Wonderful! Wonderful!’ 
Then, by a logical close, the author leaves with us the scene 
and story. 

With examples from such masters before us, we should not 
find it difficult to devise means for lightening the products of 
our studies in description. It may be well, at first, to express 
the necessary meanings plainly and completely, without much 
reference to length of treatment. We should then rewrite, 
suppressing unessential parts, and clarifying, and embodying 
expedients to hold the attention and utilize the interest of the 
most indifferent reader. 


250 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


EXERCISES 


1. Describe, by the Process Method, a telephone, or an auto- 
mobile, or some other object, as to a reader ignorant of its looks 
or use. 

2. Describe, in the same manner, an oriental rug. 

3. Describe, using its history, a Guarnerius violin. Or, indi- 
vidualize and establish in the mind of the reader, by the same 
means, some object of like age and value. 

4. Describe, by showing stages in its growth, your own city 
or village. 

5. Describe, using the third form of narration, some village or 
hamlet that you have visited. Make the study by the method 
of De Amicis. 

6. Report and discuss two examples, one from Dickens and one 
from Motley, of description by narration. 

7. Report and compare two similar examples, from standard 
magazines of the day, of description by narration. 

8. Instance some example from one of your text-books or 
reference books on history, of description by the method of history. 

g. Describe, by form-types, the safety chain. 

10. Describe, in the personal or casual manner of narration, 
some large or historic city that you have at some time visited. 


CHAPTER XXV 
DESCRIPTION WITH MYSTIC TYPE 


yee may be literal, or idealistic. It may in- 
spire the reader to construct scenes or objects, with or- 
dinary employment of imagination, which the author has seen 
or feigns to see. It may do more than this, by adding some 
hint or element of the ideal, thus making the reader supply the 
best from his own fancy. 

We must, of course, tell the outside truth in description. We 
must ensure a clear conception of lines and angles, of propor- 
tions and color, as the fundamental part of our task. We may 
be content to do this only, and it is often all that should be 
done. 

But there is a spirit, a genius, in everything, and art and ar- 
tists attempt to make the material part of their work, which is, 
so to speak, the body, suggest the soul. They enable the ob- 
server, even if unskilled in judging pictures or other works of 
art, to catch something of the higher meanings. Artistic de- 
scription, similarly, enforces through outer aspects some sense 
and recognition of the spirit behind the form. 

It is the purpose of art, of whatsoever rank, to assist per- 
ception and appreciation of the inner, informing element. The 
professional sculptor expresses the spirit of the dawn, of war, 
of charity, in symbolic shapes. Popular artists represent the 
genius of the British race by the figure of John Bull, of our 
country by Uncle Sam, of old-time China by an almond-eyed 
maid with infant feet. These are all, as we say, personifica- 
tions; but they are formed by the instinct to realize the genius 
in each case more palpably. They are spiritualizations severally 
of a vast and otherwise unmanageable material reality. 

An easy expedient for utilizing the spirit of things, in de- 
scription, is to effect the suggestion of some mood which will 


imply it. The genius of the scene or moment will be signified 
251 


252 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


through personification. Here is an example, from Bleak 
House, of the simpler sort: 


Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows 
among green aits and meadows: fog down the river, where 
it rolls defiled among tiers of shipping, and the waterside 
pollutions of a great—and dirty—city. Fog on the Essex 
marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into 
the cabooses of collier brigs; fog lying out on the yards, 
and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping 
on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the 
eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheez- 
ing by the fireside of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl 
of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his 
close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his 
shivering little *~prentice boy on deck. Chance people on 
the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky 
of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a 
balloon, and hanging in the clouds. 


This begins and ends with fog, and nothing but the material 
side and substance of the phenomenon is presented. But there 
is something more than a material conception carried by the 
words. There is mood in it, and there is spirit in it, which 
though vague, are yet indubitable, actual. The picture ends, 
without climax or variation, as it began. Buta description, im- 
parting the same mood, may stop, like a mounting rocket, with 
a burst of the visual into a more ethereal element. Let us com- 
pare a description, of the same fog—also at the opening of a 
story—from Barrie’s Tommy and Grigzel: 


Outside, the fog kept changing at intervals from black 
to white, as lazily from white to black—the monster blink- 
ing—there was not a sound from the street save of pedes- 
trians tapping with their sticks as they moved forward 
warily, afraid of an embrace with the unknown. 


Mrs. Browning, more felicitously (Aurora Leigh III. 178- 
181), makes us supply the thought of a formless monster as 
the genius of the phenomenon: 


Or I saw 
Fog only, the great tawny weltering fog, 
Involve the passive city, strangle it 
Alive and draw it off into the void. 


DESCRIPTION WITH MYSTIC TYPE 253 


Hawthorne is eminent in such refinements of description. 
The genius of everything he essays seems with him when he 
writes, and looks out from his pages. At times he appeals 
directly to the mystic and impalpable; as in his Mosses from an 
Old Manse, p. 25: 


All day long, and for a week together, the rain was drip- 
drip-dripping and splash-splash-splashing from the eaves, 
and bubbling and foaming into the tubs beneath the spouts. 
The old, unpainted shingles of the house and out-buildings 
were black with moisture; and the mosses of ancient 
growth upon the walls looked green and fresh, as if they 
were the newest things and afterthoughts of Time. The 
usually mirrored surface of the river was blurred by an 
infinity of raindrops; the whole landscape had a completely 
water-soaked appearance, conveying the impression that 
the earth was wet through like a sponge; while the summit 
of a wooded hill, about a mile distant, was enveloped in 
a dense mist, where the demon of the tempest seemed to 
have his abiding place, and to be plotting still direr in- 
clemencies. 


The whole passage, up to the beginning of the last clause, is 
essentially literal, being what the photographer turned poet 
would try to say. But Hawthorne is a painter, as well as a 
poet, and by what he adds at the end lifts the whole over into 
the realms of fancy. 

It is clear that the means used to spiritualize the scenes 
considered are type elements, but type elements of a mystic 
kind. They are typical because they are distinct and constant. 
They are mystical because we cannot know them, as we know 
varieties of form and movement, finally and completely. The 
presiding genius of Hawthorne’s tempest belongs to the group 
of demons who, according to medizval theories, triumphed now 
and then for a season over the angels of good weather, and 
strove to make their mischief perpetual. We readily visualize 
the monster spirit here inhabiting the fog as a demon, of the 
old belief, who is contriving discomfort and jeopardy against 
mankind. 

While we no longer believe in the dualism of the middle ages, 
which assigned to every child, and church, and nation, a good 


~ 


254 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


and an evil genius always in warfare over its respective destiny, 
we find ourselves reviving it, for literary reasons, now and 
then. Another theory of meteorology, as well as of the in- 
dividual and of society, has usurped its place. But there lingers 
perhaps with us an inherited memory of the old superstitions, 
which, when we are in search of means to ensure clearness and 
takingness, obtrudes its helps upon us. We are also likely 
to resort to it when we wish to refine our thought, or raise 
our reader’s fancy to the level of high or mystic seriousness. 
Here is a later example (Harper's, Vol. 145, pp. 187, 188) by 
Dallas Lore Sharp: 


In the big woods one is ever conscious of direction, a 
sense that is so exaggerated in the deepest bottoms, espe- 
cially when only indirect, diffused light fills the shadowy 
spaces, as to border on fear. [I am never free, in a strange 
forest, from its haunting Presence; so close to it that 
I seem to hear it; seem able to touch it; and when, for 
a moment of some minor interest or excitement, I have 
forgotten to remember and, looking up, find the Presence 
gone from me, I am seized with sudden fright. What 
other panic comes so softly, yet with more terrible swiift- 
ness? And once the maze seizes you, once you begin to 
meet yourself, find yourself running the circle of your 
back tracks, the whole mind goes to pieces and madness 
is upon you. 

“Set where you be and holler till I come get ye, if 
ye’re lost,” the guide would say. “Climb a tree and holler; 
don’t run around like a side-hill gouger, or you’re gone.” 

I do not know what sort of animal is Johnny’s side-hill 
gouger; though I saw, one day, far up on the side of 
the mountain a big bare spot where he had been digging 
—according to the guide. It is enough for me that there 
is such a beast in the woods, and that he gets those who 
turn round and round in the forest on rainy days and 
forget to look up. 

The gouger was abroad in the woods to-day. The clouds 
hung at the base of the mountains, just above the tops 
of the trees; the rain came straight down; the huge fallen 
trunks lay everywhere criss-cross; and once beyond the 
path to the spring the semi-gloom blurred every trail and 
put at naught all certainty of direction. But how this fear 
sharpened the senses and quickened everything in the scene 
about me. I was in the neighborhood of danger, and every 
dull and dormant faculty became alert. Nothing would 


DESCRIPTION WITH MYSTIC TYPE 255 


come from among the dusky trees to harm me; no bear, or 
lynx, or moose, for they would run away; it was the dusk 
itself, and the big trees that would not run away; and I 
watched them furtively as they drew nearer and nearer and 
closed in deeper about me. 


There are thus ancient spiritual types and notions which, dis- 
carded by the philosophy of the day, have become fanciful. We 
have new types of goodness and malevolence, of the sublime 
and of beauty, which are not mystical, but explicit. But we 
cultivate vagueness and incertitude at times concerning even 
these. The great masters of description use types of the high- 
est verities, to ensure vividness, incidentally, and leave imagina- 
tion to complete conceptions partially suggested or implied. 
Ruskin effects his interpretation of the sublime, in certain of 
Turner’s studies, largely by this means. This is the climax 
in his impressive description (Modern Painters, V, vii, 1) of 
clouds : 


Or those war-clouds that gather on the horizon, dragon- 
crested, tongued with fire; how is their barbed strength 
bridled? What bits are these they are champing with 
their vaporous lips; flinging off flakes of black foam? 
Leagued leviathans of the Sea of Heaven, out of their 
nostrils goeth smoke, and their eyes are like the eyelids 
of the morning; the sword of him that layeth at them can- 
not hold the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon. Where 
rideth the captains of their armies? Where are set the 
measures of their march? Fierce murmurers, answering 
each other from morning until evening—what rebuke is 
this which has awed them into peace—what hand has 
reined them back by the way by which they came? 


This, we note, is in the vein of the hundred and fourth 
psalm, and the last verses of Chapter XX XIX in The Book of 
Job, which Ruskin doubtless memorized, under his mother’s 
tutelage, in his boyhood. On passages like these as models, his 
remarkable style was formed. With types of the beautiful, 
mystically applied, he contrasts (V, vii, 4) the southern slopes 
of the Alps, visited by gentle precipitations of vapor from 
the Mediterranean, with the parched river valleys and plains 
below: 


* 


256 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


The great Angel of the Sea—rain; the Angel, observe, 
the messenger sent to a special place on a special errand. 
Not the diffused perpetual presence of the burden of mist, 
but the going and returning of intermittent cloud. All 
turns upon that intermittence. Soft moss on stone and 
rock; cave-fern of tangled glen; wayside well—perennial, 
patient, silent, clear; stealing through its square font of 
rough-hewn stone; ever thus deep—no more—which the 
winter wreck sullies not, the summer thirst wastes not, in- 
capable of stain as of decline—where the fallen leaf floats 
undecayed, and the insect darts undefiling. Cressed brook 
and ever-eddying river, lifted even in flood scarcely over 
its stepping-stones,—but through all sweet summer keep- 
ing tremulous music with harp-strings of dark water 
among the silver fingering of the pebbles. Far away in 
the south the strong river Gods have all hasted, and gone 
down to the sea. Wasted and burning, white furnaces of 
blasting sand, their broad beds lie ghastly and bare. But 
here the soft wings of the Sea Angel droop still with dew, 
and the shadows of their plumes falter on the hills: 
strange laughings, and glitterings of silver streamlets, 
born suddenly, and twined about the mossy heights in 
trickling tinsel, answering to them as they wave. 


Studies of moods in nature, such as artists paint from land- 
scapes and evening scenes, abound in literature and assist the 
theme in hand. Here is one of a September morning in New 
England: 


It is ten o’clock, yet nature is still motionless, as if in 
doubt what were best to do. The sky is filmed with ridgy 
clouds, which do not pass, and there is not a breath of 
wind. I can hear children’s voices from unseen homes, 
seemingly miles away, and the dreamy crowing of cocks. 
From the hidden roadway below I note a faint rumbling, 
but find myself unable to conceive it caused by other than 
phantom wheels. 


This is a mood-description of dawn in the forest mountains 
of Carinthia, by Meredith, from (Chapter IV) The Amazing 
Marriage: 


Meanwhile the high wind had sunk; the moon, after 
pushing her withered half to the zenith, was climbing the 
dusky edge, revealed fitfully; threads and wisps of thin 


DESCRIPTION WITH MYSTIC TYPE 257 


vapor travelled along a falling gale, and branched from 
the dome of the sky in migratory broken lines, like wild 
birds shifting the order of flight, north and east, where 
they sat in a web, but as yet had done no more than 
shoot up a glow along the central heavens, in amid the 
waves of deepened cloud; a mirror for night to see her 
dark self in her own hue. A shiver between the silent 
couple pricked their wits, and she said: “Chillon, shall 
we run out and call the morning?” 


The effect of description is often assisted, if, as in the ex- 
ample from Bleak House, the use of verbs is for the most part 
intermitted. Predication belongs to thought, and serves as the 
“eureka,” when truth is sighted, of the mind. It is a need- 
ful expedient when we desire to express a determined fact, 
a deliberate judgment, or a conviction. It is the “attest” of 
personality, or of the soul. But when we wish to present a 
picture strongly, and ensure its takingness by use of the mood 
it carries, we often find it more natural to mention the forma- 
tive parts instead of affirming them. We occasionally come 
upon passages that illustrate this ideally, like the following 
from Chaplin’s Five Hundred Dollars, p. 137: 


Wide wastes of salt-marsh to the right, imprisoning the 
upland with a vain promise of infinite liberty, and, be- 
tween low, distant sand-hills, a rim of sea. Stretches of 
pine woods behind, shutting in from the great world, and 
soon to darken into evening gloom. Ploughed fields and 
elm-dotted pastures to the left, and birch-lined roads lead- 
ing by white farmhouses to the village, all speaking of 
cheer and freedom to the prosperous and happy, but to 
the unfortunate and the indebted, of meshes invisible but 
strong as steel. But, before, no lonesome marshes, no 
desolate forest, no farm or village street, but the free 
blue ocean, rolling and tumbling still from the force of 
an unexpended gale. 


This opening paragraph of an article in the Outlook (Novem- 
ber 22, 1916), by Gregory Mason, is an excellent example of 
the same manner: 


A long band of yellow cutting the equal blue of sea 
and sky. A thin crust of green along the upper edge of 


258 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


the yellow. Here and there the white speck of building, 
and the single warning finger of a lighthouse. That is 
Yucatan from the steamer anchorage of Progreso. 


Finally, all moods in nature seem to involve a mystic element. 
This is due perhaps as much to our inner consciousness of 
infinite and unfathomable force, at large, as to the influence 
of real mysteries severally discerned. The most ordinary ap- 
peals to our sense of the sublime inspire visualizing effects, 
whether in narration, description or exposition. Tennyson best 
understands this secret of literary power: 


As from beyond the limit of the world. 


... and far away 
The phantom circle of a moaning sea, 


Nigh upon that hour 
When the lone hern forgets his melancholy. 


And there, that day when the great light of heaven 
Burn’d at his lowest in the rolling year. 


Ruskin has said that no description of his is worth four 
lines of Tennyson. The touch of art that has won such praise 
seems to lie in the fact that Tennyson begins by appealing to 
our sense of the sublime directly, while Ruskin relies upon 
details of form and color to arouse the sentiment desired. 
Tennyson easily makes a single line inspire a picture, as well 
as impart a consciousness of its spirit: 


The long low dune, and lazy plunging sea. 
When all night long a cloud clings to a hill. 
Where falls not rain or hail or any snow. 


And on a sudden, lo, the level lake, 
And the long glories of the winter moon. 


EXERCISES 


1, Make a description of some river scene or of a lake, with 
use of the sentiment or mood that it has inspired in you, and that 
should prove attractive to your reader. 


DESCRIPTION WITH MYSTIC TYPE 259 


2. Read Tennyson’s Passing of Arthur, and copy the lines carry- 
ing forceful imagery and mood. Try expanding one of these into 
a formally complete description. 

3. Make a mood study of some June morning that you remem- 
ber vividly. 

4. Present the mood that you imagine prevails during a total 
eclipse of the sun. Describe, from memory or imagination, the 
appearance of the landscape and the sky as the eclipse progresses. 

5. Narrate the circumstances of your visit to a prison, adding 
some description by way of the experiences occasioned. 

6. Frame a description of French’s statue of Lincoln, by use of 
the sentiment suggested in the pose and face. 

7. Recall a place, at some time visited, that has inspired strong 
feeling. Describe by way of or by use of this feeling. 

8. Make a brief description of some great public building that 
has impressed you, putting this sentiment to use. Attach a para- 
graph concerning the influence of architecture upon a community 
or city. 

g. Narrate, by the personal method, and with some use of de- 
scription by mood, any mysterious incident of which you may have 
had personal knowledge. 

to. Make a character study of some strong personality met with 
since last studies upon this topic. 

11. Report any remarkable appeals of mood noted since study 
of Chapter XX. 

12. Suggest the effects experienced on approach to a great and 
unknown city in the night. Show whether these might be util- 
ized in literary handling, and how. 


CHAPTER XXVI 
NARRATION BY EXPOSITION 


E must next inquire how matter-of-fact meanings may 

Y be made effective and vivid through being expressed by 
means that will connect them with something nobler and higher. 

It is instinctive with us to tell a fact by way of a principle, 
to express the particular by the general, the smaller by the 
greater, either for brevity and completeness, or for incidental 
or other imaginative enlargement. We do not feel the impulse 
to do this in all instances, yet we shun literalness with sur- 
prising frequency. Instead of the remark, “You have not been 
to see us lately,” the English-speaking folks-at-home have long 
preferred the phrase, “You are quite a stranger.” To avoid 
the tameness of saying, “It is spring again,” we dignify the 
fact by couching it in its cause or principle,—“The sun is mov- 
ing north.” In order not to specify, when importuned to join 
some junketing party, that our work is especially pressing, we 
are likely to answer, merely, “Business before pleasure,” or 
“Duty is duty always.” Besides stock locutions of this kind, 
there are numerous maxims and proverbs which are made to 
serve similarly as evasions. The stereotyped and shallow wis- 
dom of such formulas is less intolerable than the dull utterances 
that they replace. 

But expressions of the latter class are used but reluctantly 
and seldom by the most of us. The personal substitutions 
which we severally invent on the spur of the moment, and as 
soon forget, are the real index of our aversion to literal forms. 
Some one of us has rendered, supposably, a considerable 
service. In revolt against the triteness and insufficiency of 
bald thanks, the recipient will muster up some new phrase of 
appreciation, such as, “This is new knight-errantry,” “This is 


vassalage,” or, perhaps, in the exaggerated language of com- 
260 


NARRATION BY EXPOSITION 261 


pliment, “sheer immolation.” To deprecate the acknowledg- 
ment, the one addressed will reply,—not with the worn-out 
formulary, itself unliteral, “You are welcome,” but with some- 
thing, if it can be hit upon, of finer civility, as, “Rather was 
it a distinction,’ “It was my good fortune,” “It was super- 
merited.” So generally, to avoid crassness in making requests, 
business overtures, proposals of marriage, and the like, the 
world at large contrives to cover naked literalness with some 
appropriate generic garb. 

We aim thus at takingness and effectiveness in oral speech. 
The makers of literature, working from the same instincts, do 
this more delicately or strongly. Opening at almost any page 
of distinguished writing, we come upon artistic and striking 
illustrations : 


No birds out of that cover—The age in him held out 
secret hands to the age in her—against rebellious and en- 
croaching youth.—He had thus worn westward, leaving a 
deeply striated human surface behind him, in the line of 
the New England emigration, as far as to the farther 
border of Iowa.—Down this coast there ebbed and flowed 
a life of violence and dishonesty, peddling trades, ven- 
dettas and war.—All over the lady’s hands, barely to be 
seen, were the marks of life’s experience, the delicate and 
dread sculptures of adversity—From Venice hitherward 
he marked with cumulative effect the clustering evidences 
of effort and power crumbled to nothingness.——It just 
happened that in the very moment when the edifice of this 
noble resolution had been ready, she had stepped into it, 
out of nothingness and nowhere. 


It would be an illuminating exercise to attempt turning these 
quotations into the plain fact-statements which they transfigure. 
We should discover how much of what is said by indirections 
cannot be expressed in a literal paraphrase. In the first ex- 
ample, the speaker has been trying unsuccessfully to elicit from 
a young lady some sign as to possible interest in a young man 
he knows. In the second, two elderly folk get into sympathy 
each with each against the younger generation which seems 
to be pushing them off the stage. In the third, we have the 
summarized career of a seminary-made minister, as he is 
“shifted from the aching shoulders” of successive congrega- 


262 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


tions—and so on. So there are amenities sought for in thought 
and speech beyond the range of mere evasions. As was noted 
in our studies of exposition, it is native with us to gravitate 
towards finalities even in common talk. Nobody holds himself 
down, save for the instant, to mere facts. The inmost part of 
us, the proper self, is prevailingly and preferringly imaginative, 
and philosophical, or, as usually expressed together in one 
word, spiritual. 

When we examine the locutions of the kind in question that 
we read or hear, we discover that there are three ways of saying 
common or other things. One is of course the Literal or Fact 
way, which is least satisfying, as—to repeat a former example 
—It was the spring of the year. If we wish to express this 
less baldly, we may employ either of two expedients. The 
first of these we may call the Thought or Philosophic way, 
since we imply a fact through the laws or reasons that have 
produced it; as in this case, The sun was climbing north again. 
The other is the Imaginative or Feeling way, by which we indi- 
cate a fact by setting up a lively picture of conditions sur- 
rounding the fact; as here of the outside world in full spring- 
time: The swallows came back from the south, the wild geese 
flew honking northward, and the grass broke green again from 
the sere fields. 

It is helpful to realize that we may select the one or the 
other of these ways that will best suit the mood or purpose 
of the moment. In fact that is what, more or less instinctively, 
most sane minds do. It is well to be so advised that we can add 
the element of consciousness when there is need. To do this 
is to join art with science. It is even more important, in 
deliberate writing, to keep aware that we can dignify even 
matters as seemingly insignificant as the time of day, or month, 
or year, by use of the Thought, or the Feeling Form. If one 
should wish to say “inside of a fortnight,” in a more exalted 
vein, one might imply it through changes of the moon. If 
there were need of verse, one might venture,— 


Then ere the new moon had increas’d to full. 


Or should he elect, instead, the method of imagination, he 


} 


NARRATION BY EXPOSITION 263 


would probably bethink himself in time of Tennyson’s experi- 
ment,— 


Then ere the silver sickle of that month 
Became her golden shield,— 


and not try titles with him. Surely this example seems to 
reach the limit to which the creative fancy is like to go. For 
here of course the author personifies the given month over into 
a Minerva-like or Ceres-like figure, who appears first in state, 
before us, holding a sickle of silver, but before her second 
theophany has exchanged it for a shield of gold. Tennyson’s 
resources were better husbanded when, to signify in the Feel- 
ing way a long watch in the night, he wrote: 


I pac’d the terrace till the Bear had wheel’d 
Through a great arc his seven slow suns. 


As was noted (p. 170) in Chapter XVII, we experience two 
distinct reactions in response to imaginative appeals of per- 
sonality. In one we discern and appreciate Worth, in the other 
Nobility or Beauty of character. Normal minds under normal 
conditions are open to two main satisfactions, one called High 
Seriousness, brought on through reactions to Worth, the other, 
inspired from various amenities belonging to the Beautiful, and 
perhaps best designated as Delight. Both experiences come 
into existence in us together, and are distinguishable as parts 
of a whole, though one is always minor to the other. High 
Seriousness is the name properly to be applied to the frame 
of mind produced by ideas expressed in the Thought or Philo- 
sophic way, and Pleasure or Delight, to states incited by the 
Imaginative or Beauty way. 

High Seriousness from Worth rather than Delight from 
Beauty is the regnant principle in art and poetry, and it is 
with this that we have here to deal. Great paintings spring 
from and inspire high seriousness, and the like is true of great 
oratories and symphonies, and Gothic cathedrals. While paint- 
ings that tell a story are not in these days held in high esteem, 
the contrary may be affirmed of poetry and literature generally. 


264 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


The truth of this could hardly be illustrated better than in the 
opening lines of The Holy Grail: 


From noiseful arms, and acts of prowess done 
In tournament or tilt, Sir Percival, 

Whom Arthur and his knighthood call’d The Pure 
Had pass’d into the silent life of prayer, 

Praise, fast and alms. 


Here the plain fact sense is of course merely, “Sir Percival had 
gone into a monastery.” There is no high seriousness in the 
mind that could say just that, and in just that way. But there 
is high seriousness here, and there can be no question that it 
rises well nigh to the level of the sublime in poetry. We can 
delay longer only to remark that passages cast like this, in the 
Thought way, stand next to “imaginative appeals,” and should 
be set down in memory as the second, in power and value, of 
all the elements in literature. 

Minds motivated by high seriousness will employ themselves 
not only upon terms and phrases, in the thought or philosophi- 
cal vein, but on whole paragraphs and even volumes also. It 
is in such states of mind that meanings of things are made to 
do duty for the things, and that Exposition is substituted for 
plain Narration. When Coleridge assayed to speak of his 
unheedful and inconsequent literary career, he condensed the 
story into this remarkable passage: 


I have laid too many eggs in the hot sands of this wil- 
derness, the world, with ostrich carelessness and ostrich 
oblivion. The greater part indeed have been trod under 
foot, and are forgotten; but no small number have crept 
into life, some to furnish feathers for the caps of others, 
and still more to plume the shafts in the quivers of my 
enemies, of them that unprovoked have lain in wait 
against my soul. 


Here the author gives the substance of many specific para- 
graphs by use of a single developed figure. He states what by 
explaining how. He achieves and intensifies the effect of nar- 
ration by a process that is essentially exposition. 

A more specific summary of how this author had published 
articles and papers without deliberation, often forgetting both 


NARRATION BY EXPOSITION 265 


the matter and the medium, and how some of his ideas had 
been plagiarized, and some used as a means of attack against 
himself, would have detailed more of his meaning, but com- 
pelled less intensive comprehension of it from the reader. His 
manner of communicating with us makes us realize his narra- 
tive in particulars which we ourselves in effect supply. We un- 
derstand and appreciate our own efforts better than another’s. 
By stimulating us to larger co-operation, Coleridge has lodged 
his faults and wrongs with us more tellingly and permanently. 

It will not be strange if we come upon minds natively fervid 
that affect moods of high seriousness, and persist in communi- 
cating events to be known by things to be felt, to an inordinate 
limit. Thus Carlyle attempts, not unsuccessfully, to present 
the tremendous facts of the French Revolution by an exegesis 
of what they signify. Philosopher rather than historian, he 
concerns himself more intimately with aspects than with action, 
and shows events through the vista of forces that compel 
them,—in all confidence that his public will supply details im- 
plied in the interpretation. Here is a common example (H1s- 
tory III. v) of his manner: 


Thus, however, has the reader seen, in an unexpected 
arena, on this last day of February, 1791, the Three long- 
contending elements of French Society dashed forth into 
singular comico-tragical collision; acting and reacting 
openly to the eye. Constitutionalism, at once quelling San- 
sculottic riot at Vincennes, and Royalist treachery in the 
Tuileries, is great this day, and prevails. As for poor 
Royalism, tossed to and fro in that manner, its daggers 
all left in a heap, what can one think of it? Every dog, 
the Adage says, has its day: has it; has had it: or will 
have it. For the present, the day is Lafayette’s and the 
Constitution’s. Nevertheless Hunger and Jacobinism, 
fast growing fanatical, still work; their day, were they 
once fanatical, will come. Hitherto, in all tempests, Lafay- 
ette, like some divine Sea-ruler, raises his serene head; the 
upper Afolus’ blasts fly back to their caves, like foolish 
unbidden winds; the under sea-billows they had vexed 
into froth allay themselves. But if, as we often write, the 
sub-marine Titanic Fire-powers came into play, the Ocean- 
bed from beneath being burst? If they hurled Poseidon 
Lafayette and his Constitution out of Space; and, in the 
Titanic melly, sea were mixed with sky? 


266 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


Of course the History of the French Revolution is not easy 
reading, and its wilful disregard of literary form distresses us. 
But Carlyle’s style, where harshest and most unnatural, is 
nowhere in itself obscure. What there is of difficulty here is 
due to the author’s vehement indirectness of mention or al- 
lusion. No other of his historical writings is cast in the same 
vein. It is well understood that plain, annalistic statements do 
not comport with strong emotion. Men in a mood of sublime 
seriousness over affairs make more effort to express the mood 
than the affairs. Macduff, coming from the chamber of King 
Duncan, uses language (Macbeth II. iti, 69-74) not more literal 
than Carlyle’s, and not easier to comprehend: 


Oh, horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart 
Cannot conceive nor name thee... . 
Confusion now hath made his masterpiece! 
Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope 

The Lord’s anointed temple, and stole thence 
The life o’ the building. 


Macduff’s consternation and horror leave the fact of Duncan’s 
murder, for the moment, in the shadow. Carlyle’s emotionalism 
over the wrongs and vengeance of a mighty people leaves the 
facts of their revolt in shadow through three whole volumes. 
Yet this rhapsodizing History fulfilled its purpose, and was 
widely read, even among the uneducated, in its generation. 

But this manner of exposition is at best overwrought, and too 
widely alien from the thought and speech of living men. It is 
a phase of literature to be pondered over rather than culti- 
vated. It is native to all minds, as we have seen, to rise to the 
levels of high seriousness and imagination. It is not native 
to tether one’s moods to either plane. What we find in the 
diction of the great conversers and letter writers is in the main 
to be accepted as indicating safe limits for the author. So 
sentences like these, from short bursts of inspiration, may 
stand for what the world accepts and subconsciously expects 
from approved writers of the day: 


The fact slowly worked back into her consciousness, 
wounding its way in. (Howells.) All day our sea lies 


NARRATION BY EXPOSITION 267 


still, grey and sullen, just showing a fringe of white teeth 
near the shore. (Sale.) A spring of diamond water just 
bubbled into the moonlight beside them, then whimpered 
away through the bushes and long grass, in search of a 
neighboring mid-stream. (Hawthorne. ) 


We note that it is not difficult to distinguish the two attitudes 
or frames of mind that give rise to sentences like these. In 
one, our imaging powers are curbed, and kept at work accord- 
ing to a purpose. In the other, they have free range. We 
are often aware, although we pass from one to the other with- 
out pause, of the difference between these moods. When we 
listen to the report, perhaps of Amundsen’s expedition, we hold 
our minds, as he speaks of his tribulations, to the task of realiz- 
ing and picturing what is told. If the speaker begins quoting 
without notice some passage from the Earthly Paradise or the 
Ancient Mariner, we go on with him for a line or two, keeping 
imagination in harness just as before. But the instant we 
perceive that he has changed his mood and is voicing poetry, 
we stop imaging according to the letter of directions and leave 
imagination free. We were before trying to realize, and know 
the truth exactly. We now renounce all obligation of actuality, 
and let fancy picture what it will. We rest from duty, and 
give ourselves up to diversion and delight. 

The evident means by which ideas are expressed, in the 
philosophic and the feeling vein, are Figures. As was seen 
in Chapter VII, we constantly borrow a whole object for the 
sake of using a single element of its looks or content. We 
say “gambrel,” which is the leg of a horse, when we mean 
only the angle in its form. We are prompted perhaps to call 
some man a fox and thus assign him spiritually for the moment 
to the class of foxes, when we visualize him as in cunning 
more fox than man. The word standing for the interpreting 
object or idea is called a Metaphor. It may be either the 
subject of a sentence, as Jack Frost whitens the window panes, 
or the predicate, as the frost paints the windows. When both 
the subject and the predicate are metaphors, the result is 
Allegory; as in Jack Frost paints the windows. Here the 
thing to be felt is put for the meaning to be known. This is 
the typical and complete modus of narration by exposition. 


268 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


In the beginnings of modern literature, allegory was a com- 
mon way of casting ordinary happenings in literary form. In 
the fourteenth century the presumption still prevailed that but 
few matters were in themselves sufficient to bear recounting, 
and therefore required that the refinement of a spiritualizing 
form should be superadded. It was then that Boccaccio set 
the daring example of telling a story as a story, and letting 
the content rather than the manner justify the outcome. Alle- 
gory soon passed out of fashion, at least in large units like the 
Divine Comedy, as a literary formulary. But in ordinary 
discourse, oral and literary, it kept the place it had held be- 
fore, and still holds to-day. In fact, there is probably as much 
tendency to allegorize, in low units, as there ever was. It is 
interesting to watch how the forms come out, in every walk of 
life, as the most natural thing in the world: 


He would buy books, even while the wolf was scratching 
on the door.—In comes Mr. Retailer and binds and gags 
both producer and consumer.—Venus was hunting Adonis 
all over the place—Uncle Sam speaks soft, but doesn’t 
carry a big stick.—She is the Dutch-Cleanser woman in- 
carnate, chasing dirt all over the house—The British, if 
they aren’t wise, will kill the goose that lays the rubber 


eggs. 


And in deliberate literature, old-fashioned allegory creeps in 
before one is aware. Mrs. Wharton not long ago gave us 
(Ethan Frome, p. 9) this rather remarkable illustration: 


When the storms of February had pitched their white 
tents and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged 
down to their support, I began to understand why_Stark- 
field emerged from its six months’ siege like a starved gar- 

| rison capitulating without quarter. 


Here, of course, the spiritualization is not complete. The 
phrases “of February,” “of March winds,” tie the vision to 
reality, yet do not prevent visualized personification in the sub- 
ject of either clause. 

But speakers and writers incline much more to metaphors 
than allegory, and are found in general to finish with the 


NARRATION BY EXPOSITION 269 


borrowed notion in a single clause or period. When the figure 
is extended through successive sentences, as in the passage 
from Coleridge, we have a form which may be distinguished as 
Extended Metaphor. In this we note that the succession of 
metaphors attaches to the predicate side of the illustrations 
severally, since the subject of each narrative unit remains the 
literal personality of the writer and is represented by “I” 
throughout. If Coleridge had introduced himself under some 
generic name—feigning himself for instance as the ostrich 
whose habits of life he borrows—he could have wrought his 
story, though of course even less elegantly—into an allegory 
worthy of Chaucer’s age. On the other hand, the Pilgrim’s 
Progress might have been reduced from allegory to extended 
metaphor by such rewriting as would substitute the name of 
the author, or the pronoun of the first person, as the hero of 
the story. The author was writing the spiritual history of 
John Bunyan, but universalized it through representing him- 
self by “Christian” as a type. He narrates the personal inci- 
dents of his new religious life by expounding and illustrating 
the general doctrines of grace and faith. 

Powerful effects may also be wrought by similes and com- 
parisons, as introduced by as, and like, and than. One might 
have supposed these words used generally in expressions of 
kind: “like as a father”; “like no known example”; “like 
calumny.” But they are incessantly employed, at least col- 
loquially, as means of suggesting degree: “wise as serpents”; 
“like lightning” ; “dead as dust”; “sterner than pain” ; “tenderer 
than pity.” Similes proper in form may be used improperly, 
outside of colloquial and profane phrases, with tremendous 
effect, as here from Hermann Hagedorn’s interpretation of the 
Miserendino bust of Roosevelt: 


He was found faithful over a few things and he was 
made ruler over many; he cut his own trail clean and 
straight and millions followed him toward the light. 

He was frail; he made himself a tower of strength. He 
was timid; he made himself a lion of courage. He was 
a dreamer; he became one of the great doers of all 
Hime. wus 

He broke a nation’s slumber with his cry, and it rose 


270 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


up. He touched the eyes of blind men with flame and 
gave them vision. Souls became swords through him; 
swords became servants of God. 

He was terrible in battle, but tender to the weak, joy- 
ous and tireless, being free from self-pity; clean with 
cleanness that cleansed the air like a gale... . 


Cleansed the air like a gale! Of course a gale does not 
cleanse the air, but displaces it. Yet what a phrase, what 
power comes with it! How may one learn to write like that, 
—like the new school of authorship in America and England ? 
It can come only from full seeing and keen emotion. Any 
inherited idea that similes and metaphors are to be sought for 
and engrafted as an embellishment must be rooted up out of 
one’s consciousness. Figures come of themselves as they came 
to this writer here. Watch men who are in real earnest when 
they speak. They know not what they do until they do it. Out 
of their inmost selves rise deep feelings, and the feelings in- 
spire the utterance, the figures. 

It should now be clear why detailed allegory of any sort is 
no longer an acceptable form of either narration or exposition. 
To the public sense the notion of a seriously or formally per- 
sonified type is ludicrous and provocative of burlesque. As we 
have seen, it is easier to make another say things for us than to 
say them in our own name and selves. There is greater quaint- 
ness and fascination in setting up bucolic and slow-witted 
figures to express our wise thoughts for us than in endowing 
equals for the task. So we now find set up for us whimsical 
figures to say the inwardness of things more pointedly and 
takingly than would be possible in sober terms. The Biglow 
Papers, Nasby Letters, Dooley Dissertations, or Fables spun 
out by some philosophic clown, are the vogue of the age. 
Figures advertise the inner before the outer meaning, and are 
therefore the most intense and effectual means of “gripping” 
the attention of our reader. The conciseness of this stenog- 
raphy of types is potently revealed to us now and then, when 
some genius, like Holmes, sums up a whole chapter of vision 
in a single sentence: “When a resolute young fellow steps up 
to the great bully, the worid, and takes him by the beard, he 
is often surprised to find it come off in his hand, and that it 


NARRATION BY EXPOSITION 271 


was only tied on to scare away timid adventurers.”’ This once 
read, or heard, who could endure the weakness and prolixity 
inevitable in any attempt to say it literally? 


EXERCISES 


1. Try whether you can recall an instance of extended meta- 
phor, or perhaps shortened allegory, from some letter lately writ- 
ten, or conversation engaged in with others. 

2. Under an assumed character, such as Mr. Dooley or Hosea 
Biglow, discuss some aspect of school or other politics. 

3. Write a plain exposition of the wrongs or mischief that you 
have just treated in the whimsical vein. 

4. Narrate some phase of school history or studentship, after 
the manner of the passage quoted from Coleridge, by exposition. 

5. Report two or three examples, heard at home or at school, 
of facts expressed, like the sentences quoted (p. 260) from oral 
discourse, by the inner significance of each. 

6. Recall from your reading, or report: from present search, 
three or four examples of literary figures of the class illustrated 
on p. 261. 

7. Report some instance in which you or a companion have 
lately employed exposition for narration. 

8. Examine some “fable” in the papers, and show its place and 
nature in the mock-serious writing of the day. 

9g. Show whether the “I” of How They Brought the Good News 
does or does not represent Robert Browning personally. Discuss 
the poem, expounding the meaning and identifying the form. 
Show whether its purpose could have been accomplished by literal 
or direct treatment more potently. Note also whether it narrates 
by exposition, or expounds by narration. 

10. Read “The Celestial Railroad,” in Hawthorne’s Mosses, and 
discuss its purpose and manner, and report whether you think it 
would be read and welcomed by the public of to-day, with rea- 
sons. 

11. Study Wolsey’s famous soliloquy, in Shakespeare’s Henry 
VIII, and discuss it as an illustration of the principles in this 
chapter. 

12, Compare with some chapter of Carlyle’s History, Lecture 
II in his Heroes and Hero Worship. 

13. Try a burlesque allegory. 

14. Attempt developing a serious one after the manner of Bun- 


272 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


yan, detailing the career of some imaginary or promising acquaint- 
ance, 

15. Search out some theme, from former studies not connected 
with the exercises in this manual, and evaluate or criticize the fig- 
ures. 

16. Narrate the fact of the vast emigrations to this country by 
use of the Thought or the Beauty form, in extended metaphor. 


CHAPTER XXVII 
ASSOCIATIONS AND ENVIRONMENT 


U is possible to make a literary subject taking by gathering 
about it pleasurable or unfavorable associations. 

The story-teller often colors, and approvably, the impressions 
his hearers are to receive of any object, or place, or personality. 
According to his sympathies towards his subject, he will choose 
or shape the associations in the midst of which it is to appear. 
If he wishes, he will set up a pleasing background. If it serves 
his general purpose, he will group around the central point dark 
or discordant elements. If it is necessary to make some town 
that he has visited appear romantic, he will tell of the Indian 
attack repulsed once by its settlers. If he is out of sympathy 
with the pretentious magnate connected with his theme, he will 
show him as he looked chasing his hat, or soaked in the rain, 
or recovering himself after a fall on the icy sidewalk. 

By use of like means, writers of fiction “queer” at the out- 
set a fashionable street by making it the scene of an automobile 
accident or an affray. Or they make an unattractive quarter 
seem transfigured by a wedding train and marriage bells. They 
cause the prison to appear bright with flowers, and sunshine, 
and noble visitors. They make the palace gloomy,—like “Bleak 
House,” by a storm and freshet and dank, sunless days. They 
turn the home uncanny, by letting us know that it has been 
disturbed by ghosts, or was once the haunt of thugs. Or, for 
a contrary effect, they discover to us that the sleepy village was 
the birthplace of some poet or artist of reputation. In its 
unpainted tavern Washington slept on his way to Boston in 
1775. Or, in the motherland, it is a country hall in which 
the great Elizabeth lodged, or where Washington Irving, as at 
the Red Horse Inn, was a guest and wrote. Or yet again, it 
is the house in London where Benedict Arnold, suspected and 


spied upon, lived his last hours and died in remorse. 
273 


274 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


The strength of the prepossessions and prejudices to which 
the makers of literature appeal is seldom realized and often 
unsuspected. The most beautiful of roses loses its fragrance 
and becomes a thing of disgust if we learn that it has been 
picked up warm from the sidewalk, dropped there unwittingly 
by a bedizened wearer. Even money, as the measure of value 
and innocent medium of exchange, receives a taint from the 
iniquity of the last possessor, and the price of blood is adjudged, 
even by avarice, as fit only to buy a potter’s field. On the 
other hand, objects in themselves of limited or little worth, 
acquire immeasurable values from their associations. The 
pen with which Lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation 
grows more priceless year by year. The Guarnerius “King 
Josephs,” the favorite instrument of Paganini, is a treasure too 
inviolate and exalted to be taken from its shrine—except in an 
hour of national calamity, as the earthquake at Messina—or 
even touched. 

Perhaps no author in our literature has used the mode of 
association more constantly or effectually than Poe. We find 
it employed variously in The Raven and others of his poems. 
Associations of taste and odor abound in King Pest, of sound 
and color in The House of Red Death, where the effect perhaps 
is strongest. From the Island of the Fay, in which the asso- 
ciations are mainly of form, or sight, we quote this illustra- 
tion :— 


The trees were dark in color, and mournful in form and 
attitude, wreathing themselves into sad, solemn, and spec- 
tral shapes that conveyed ideas of mortal sorrow and un- 
timely death. The grass wore the deep tint of the cypress, 
and the heads of its blades hung droopingly, and hither 
and thither among it were many small unsightly hillocks, 
low and narrow, and not very long, that had the aspect of 
graves, but were not; although over and all about them 
the rue and the rosemary clambered. The shade of the 
trees fell heavily upon the water, and seemed to bury it- 
self therein, impregnating the depths of the element with 
darkness. I fancied that each shadow, as the sun de- 
scended lower and lower, separated itself sullenly from 
the trunk that gave it birth, and thus became absorbed by 
the stream; while other shadows issued momently from the 
trees, taking the place of their predecessors thus entombed. 


ASSOCIATIONS AND ENVIRONMENT 275 


Writers of fact as well as creators of fiction often show the 
instinct of this mode. The effect is in essence cumulative, and 
produced as by a panorama of suggestive elements. Macau- 
lay’s description of the scene before the trial of Warren Hast- 
ings is a notable illustration. The following is a paragraph 
from Mrs. Edwards’s A Thousand Miles Up the Nile (Chapter 
VEIL: 


It may be that the traveler who finds himself for the 
first time in the midst of a grove of Wellingtonia gigantea 
feels something of the same overwhelming sense of awe 
and wonder! but the great trees, though they have taken 
three thousand years to grow, lack the pathos and the 
mystery that comes of human labor. They do not strike 
their roots through six thousand years of history. They 
have not been watered with the blood and tears of mil- 
lions. (It has been calculated that every stone of these 
huge Pharaonic temples cost at least one human life.) 
Their leaves know no sounds less musical than the singing 
of birds, or the moaning of the night-wind as it sweeps 
over the highlands of Calaveros. But every breath that 
wanders down the painted aisles of Karnak seems to echo 
back the sighs of those who perished in the quarry, at 
the oar, and under the chariot wheels of the conqueror. 


It is clear that instances of the present sort are not widely 
dissociated from those imparting mood. Shakespeare’s setting 
for the Fifth Act of The Merchant of Venice is in conception 
a nocturne, and involves a mood of nature as well as sumptuous 
associations. When mood and associations are commingled, as 
in this case, the effect is analogous to what is called atmosphere 
in painting. The best examples are doubtless to be found in 
poetry. There is probably nothing more remarkable, for effects 
of this union, in our literature than this scene from The Pass- 
ing of Arthur: 


Nor ever yet had Arthur fought a fight 

Like this last, dim, weird battle of the west. 

A deathwhite mist slept over sand and sea; 

Whereof the chill, to him who breathed it, drew 
Down in his blood, till all his heart was cold. 

For friend and foe were shadows in the mist, 

And friend slew friend not knowing whom he slew. 


276 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE. VISUALLY 


The half-mystic half-golden atmosphere of The Holy Grail 
is constituted through mingling types of mystery with medie- 
val or romantic and religious associations. With this, Morris’s 
Story of the Glittering Plain, as a study of a somewhat dif- 
ferent sort, may be compared. 

The fate of a character, in a drama or novel, is often fixed 
in advance by the associations with which he is made to enter. 
Often a personage of importance, or one likely to command 
sympathy to the disadvantage of the principal figures, is dis- 
posed of permanently by the device perhaps of a single situa- 
tion. Shakespeare, in Othello, belittles Brabantio, in relation 
to the hero and his bride, by the expedient of making him come 
to the window of his palace, at the call of Iago and Roderigo, 
and receive rebuke for appearing before them without clothing. 
He is no doubt everyway a worshipful seignior, and devoted to 
the intellectual life. But we are not permitted to view the 
man in his essential nature, and he dies of grief without the 
least sympathy from ourselves. Minor examples of this mode 
are common enough in novels: 


Mrs. Gapp, who has buried three husbands and really 
ought to know a good deal about connubiosity—conju- 


gosity. 


This friend, a sound critic you could always rely upon, 
but—mind you !—a much better Critic than an Artist, was 
seated before the picture with a short briar-root in his 
mouth, and his thumbs in the armholes of a waistcoat with 
two buttons off. 


‘ “I think you said you had met my cousin, Volumnia 
ax. 

“At Lady Presteign’s—yes, of course I did! with a 
splendid head of auburn hair, and a—strongly character- 
istic manner. We had a most enjoyable talk.” 

“She has a red head and freckles, and is interested in 
Psychceopaty.” 


No writer has been more daring or unsparing, in treatment 
of character by associations, than Dickens. Opening any- 
where, we shall find that our sympathies, from his earliest crea- 
tions in Pickwick to Mr. Jasper in Mystery of Edwin Drood, 
are sternly prescribed from the very start. Sometimes the fate 


ASSOCIATIONS AND ENVIRONMENT 277 


of a character is fixed by the name with which the author 
labels him. In general, the effects of association are easily 
distinguished from characterizations proper. The things a 
man does deliberately or consciously evince his character. The 
clothes he selects reflect his tastes and nature. But a waist- 
coat, buttonless because of a wife’s neglect, contributes to the 
influence of association. 

By associations, we make a reader share our moods. Even 
the sun can be made to part, if the author wills, with somewhat 
of his glory: 


The sun had taken a mean advantage of its being a glo- 
rious day, to get the nice clean frozen corners and make 
a nasty mess. 


Mrs. Aiken, at one of the bays that flanked the doorway 
of Athabaska Villa, looked out upon the top and bottom 
half of a sun up to his middle in a chill purple mist, and 
waited for tea. 


It is but a step farther to burlesque, which may be effected 
similarly through associations. Butler’s satire upon classical 
allusions to the rosy-fingered dawn will occur to us here: 


The sun had long since in the lap 
Of Thetis taken out his nap, 

And, like a lobster boiled, the morn 
From black to red began to turn. 


The presentation or treatment of home interiors is an im- 
portant part of literary description, and is largely accomplished 
through associations. This example from Hardy shows how 
they may be used to supply the absence of details: 


A glance into the apartment at eight o’clock on this 
eventiul evening would have resulted in the opinion that 
it was as cozy and comfortable as could be wished for in 
boisterous weather. The calling of its inhabitant was pro- 
claimed by a number of highly-polished sheep-crooks 
without stems that were hung ornamentally over the fire- 
place, the curl of each shining crook varying from the 
antiquated type engraved in the patriarchal pictures of the 
old family Bibles to the most approved fashion of the last 
local sheepfair. The room was lighted by half-a-dozen 


278 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


candles, having wicks only a trifle smaller than the grease 
which enveloped them, in candlesticks that were never used 
but at high-days, holy-days, and family feasts. The lights 
were scattered about the room, two of them standing on 
the chimney-piece. This position of candles was in itself 
significant. Candles on chimney-pieces always meant a 
party. 

On the hearth, in front of a back-brand to give sub- 
stance, blazed a fire of thorns, that crackled “like the 
laughter of the fool.” 


But in the following description, details and associations are 
used together: 


He advanced to the parlor, as the front room was called, 
though its stone floor was scarcely disguised by the car- 
pet, which only overlaid the trodden areas, leaving sandy 
deserts under the furniture. But the room looked snug 
and cheerful. The firelight shone out brightly, trembling 
on the bulging mouldings of the table-legs, playing with 
brass knobs and handles, and lurking in great strength on 
the under surface of the chimney-piece. A deep arm- 
chair, covered with horsehair, and studded with a count- 
less throng of brass nails, was pulled up on one side of 
the fireplace. The tea-things were on the table, the tea- 
pot cover was open, and a little hand-bell had been laid 
at that precise point towards which a person seated in 
the great chair might be expected instinctively to stretch 
his hand. 


The general sentiment of a story may be imparted before- 
hand by the influences of the setting. A parlor, with a Rogers 
group, and high-hung mottoes, lowers our sympathies to the 
pitch of a past generation. Tavern walls, with framed pic- 
tures, in color, of record trotters, or of pugilists stripped to the 
waist, with arms lifted, set our aversions against those who are 
content to have their being under such conditions. 

When the mind is engaged with accessories of this sort, so 
as to overshadow for the time being the real subject of treat- 
ment, the details and associations may be said to have become 
environment. The use of environment by such masters as 
Tolst6y and Turgenev and Ibsen has established its impor- 
tance in the interpretation of life by literature. Here is an 
example from Dostoévski (Brothers Karamazov, p. 206): 


ASSOCIATIONS AND ENVIRONMENT 279 


Then Alyosha opened the door and crossed the thresh- 
old. He found himself in a regular peasant’s room. 
Though it was large, it was cumbered up with domestic 
belongings of all sorts, and there were several people in 
it. On the left was a large Russian stove. From the 
stove to the window on the left was a string across the 
room, and on it there were rags hanging. There was a 
bedstead against the wall on each side, right and left, 
covered with knitted quilts. On the one on the left was 
a pyramid of four print-covered pillows, each smaller than 
the one beneath. On the other there was only one very 
small pillow. The opposite corner was screened off by 
a curtain or a sheet hung on a string. Behind this cur- 
tain could be seen a bed made up on a bench and a chair. 
The rough square table of plain wood had been moved 
into the middle window. The three windows, which con- 
sisted each of four tiny greenish mildewy panes, gave lit- 
tle light, and were close shut, so that the room was not 
very light and rather stuffy. On the table was a frying- 
pan with the remains of some fried eggs, a half eaten 
piece of bread, and a small bottle with a few drops of 
vodka. 


A character may be postulated, and almost supplied before- 
hand, by skilful use of environment. This is an excellent il- 
lustration from Chaplin’s “Saint Patrick,” in Five Hundred 
Dollars: 


Across the street, and a little way down the road, is the 
square white house with a hopper-roof, which an elderly, 
childless widow, departing this life some forty years ago, 
thoughtfully left behind her for a parsonage. It is a 
pleasant, homelike house, open to sun and air, and the 
pleasantest of all its rooms is the minister’s study. It is 
an upper front chamber, with windows to the east and 
south. There is nothing in the room of any value; but 
whether the minister is within, or is away and is repre- 
sented only by his palm-leaf dressing-gown, somehow the 
Spirit of peace seems always to abide there... . 

Over the chimney-piece hangs a great missionary map, 
showing the stations of the different societies, with a key 
at one side. This blue square in Persia denotes a mission- 
ary post of the American Board of Commissioners; that 
red cross in India is an outpost of a Presbyterian mission- 
ary society; this green diamond in Arrapatam marks a 
station of the Free Church Missionary Union. As one 


280 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


looks the map over, he seems to behold the whole mission- 
ary force at work. He sees, in imagination, Mr. Elmer 
Small, from Augusta, Maine, preaching predestination to 
a company of Karens, in a house of reeds, and the Rev. 
Geo. T. Wood, from Massachusetts, teaching Paley in 
Roberts College at Constantinople. ... 

The walls of the room are for the most part hidden by 
books. The shelves are simple affairs of stained maple, 
covered heavily with successive coats of varnish, cracked, 
as is that of the desk, by age and heat. The contents are 
varied. Of religious works there are the Septuagint, in 
two fat little blue volumes, like Roman candles; Conant’s 
Genesis; Hodge on Romans; Hacket on Acts, which the 
minister’s small children used to spell out as “Jacket on 
Acts”; Knott on the Fallacies of the Antinomians; A Tour 
in Syria; Dr. Grant and the Mountain Nestorians, and six 
Hebrew Lexicons, singed by fire—a paternal inheritance. 

There are a good many works, too, of general literature, 
but rather oddly selected, as will happen where one makes 
up his library chiefly by writing book-notices: Peter 
Bayne’s Essays; Coleridge; the first volume of Masson’s 
Life of Milton; Vanity Fair; the Dutch Republic; the 
Plurality of Worlds; and Mommsen’s Rome. That very 
attractive book in red you need not take down; it is only 
the History of Norwalk, Conn., with the residence of J. T. 
Wales, Esq., for a frontispiece: the cover is all there is 
to it. Finally, there are two shelves of Patent Office Re- 
ports, and Perry’s Expedition to Japan with a panoramic 
view of Yeddo. This shows that the minister has num- 
bered a congressman among his flock. 


After this presentation of environment, the minister, Dr. 
Parsons, is introduced by name, but without a syllable of de- 
scriptive or other treatment as a character. There is no need. 
We have put into the frame already a better picture than the 
author could have limned out for us. 

It is possible to tell a whole story thus by environment, with- 
out introducing the characters living in the midst of it at all. 
This indeed has more than once been done. Environment 
shows the things which personality has grouped, or allowed to 
be grouped, about itself. Associations cling to things and places 
after personality has been withdrawn. The eye of the skilled 
writer is quick to note the possibilities offered, in dealing with 
a given character, by both these helps. 


ASSOCIATIONS AND ENVIRONMENT 281 


EXERCISES 


I. Make a description of the most notable assembly that you 
have witnessed, using as aid the associations available from the 
place or the eminence of personages observed to have been present. 

2. Recall some instance of offhand oral story-telling, in which 
associations were utilized as part of the means employed to make 
the recital taking. 

3. Describe some room, or the interior of some house, by use 
of associations. 

4. Make an environment sketch of some home, or room in it, 
which shall suggest the appearance and character of the occupant. 

5. show the surroundings and atmosphere of a pretentious house 
in which you would not like to take lodgings. 

6. Show the like, in a house which, in the contrary way, at- 
tracts. 

7. Write a letter from your home town, as to a stranger whom 
you wish to dissuade from coming to settle in it. Be careful to 
present only actual considerations, without exaggeration, found in 
unfavorable circumstances or signs. 

8. Write another letter, as to another stranger for whom you 
wish your home town to have attractions, without exaggeration 
of its claims. 

g. Write an appreciation of the use De Amicis makes of asso- 
ciations in the lately studied chapter of Constantinople. 

10. Point out the main use of associations in Scott’s Ivanhoe. 

11. Write an appreciation of Stevenson’s Treasure Island, and 
show for what qualities the work, in your judgment, is most re- 
markable. 

12. Read Chaplin’s “Saint Patrick,’ in Five Hundred Dollars, 
and expound the meaning of the story. 

13. Develop your impressions of Dr. Parsons, as given through 
the author’s handling of the sketch. Show how you would pre- 
sent this personality through using the ordinary means of charac- 
terization. 

14. Report and discuss any example of environment work simi- 
lar, in short stories, or other fiction, recalled from recent reading. 

15. Show the use of environment and associations in Howells’s 
novel of The Lion’s Head. 

16. Use the method of associations in describing some heirloom 
belonging to your family. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 
THE CONCRETE MANNER 


E have doubtless noted, in the essay and review articles 

that we have examined since our study of Exposition, 
that the language used is often not so easy to follow as we 
expect. We have perhaps gone back to Chapter XIV in the 
hope of finding out why the expository matter that we meet 
with is generally not so taking and effective as the examples 
instanced there. It grows more and more apparent that the 
true inwardness of things, when opened skilfully, is not less 
engaging than the things themselves. It is now in order to 
inquire what sort of skill is thus used by the best writers, and 
how to adapt it to our own problems with best effect. 

That we are in the midst of a movement that is changing the 
ways and standards of literary writing is undoubted. That we 
are ourselves to help in our degree enact a chapter of more 
pronounced reform is inspiring. It will make us surer of our 
steps if we first survey the background before which our pres- 
ent and prospective work is laid. 

Most of us have probably by a few years escaped the tribu- 
lations which our fathers suffered. In their first studies in 
essay writing, they were encouraged to magnify their tasks, 
and write as profoundly as they were able. They sometimes 
surprised themselves at the amount of meaning they could 
crowd into a single sentence. They set down “human good- 
ness,” “righteous endeavor,” when they meant “good men and 
women,” “efforts of righteous folk.” Though they could 
hardly be induced to read a paragraph of ideas cast in abstract 
form, they wrote with an abstractness even more abstract. 
Shall we “sample” the class of styles which they accepted as 
their models? The following is quoted from an expositional 


best seller of a century ago: 
282 


THE CONCRETE MANNER 283 


As long as man remained ignorant of his own nature, 
he could not, of design, form his institutions in accord- 
ance with it. Until his own faculties became the subjects 
of his observation, and their relations the objects of his 
reflection, they operated as mere instincts. He adopted 
savage habits, because his animal propensities were not at 
first directed by the moral sentiments, or enlightened by 
reflection. He next assumed the condition of the bar- 
barian, because his higher powers had made some advance, 
but had not yet attained supremacy; and he now manu- 
factures, because his constructive faculties and intellect 
have given him power over physical nature, while his 
avarice and ambition are predominant, and are gratified 
by such avocations. Not one of these changes, however, 
has been adopted from design, or from perception of its 
suitableness to the nature of man. He has been ill at ease 
in them all; but it does not follow that he shall continue 
for ever equally ignorant of his nature, and equally in- 
capable of framing institutions to harmonize with it.— 
George Combe: The Constitution of Man, pp. II, 12. 


There seems small reason, except consciousness of ability, 
why a seasoned author should write in such a vein for com- 
mon readers. There are several reasons why, for the sake of 
his public, he should eschew it wholly. One of importance is, 
it sets up and keeps wrong standards before the learner. The 
following school essay, composed under the usual conditions, 
will illustrate: 


To those of us who have encountered circumstances, 
such as without any apparent effort contribute to nature 
her uncompromising demands for our physical develop- 
ment and mental growth, the imagination is one of the 
sweet endowments of nature. 

It being made the sweeter by reason of the inability of 
its owner to comprehend its presence. 

For is it not by means of the imagination this mortal 
clay rises beyond its so-called station, and is launched 
into the very realms of the ideal of the soul? 

We thereby reaping the harvest in part of our own 
most distant ideals. 

Could the imagination nurtured in such a physical exist- 
ence as heretofore described do else than picture, for such, 
as a whole a happy route. Possibly habitated by scattered 
thorns that prick not deep, but rather a life which grasps 


284 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


the spoils on its route sailing on and on in the far and 
mysterious future is seen to be merging into its eternity. 

The imagination very reluctantly heeds the crumbling of 
the form which it inhabits. It lastly concedes that this 
form is not as of yore. 


That the young lady who composed this exactly copied 
“theme” was an immature student, is evident enough. That 
she could have written it, had there never been literature like 
the former example to mislead her, is scarcely to be imagined. 
She is known not to have been wanting, except as to literary 
matters, in intelligence and judgment. She undoubtedly had 
meanings of some sort to express. Her command of spelling 
and punctuation should argue corresponding ability to say these 
meanings with some degree of clearness. But would she have 
been willing to let her instructors know just what those ideas 
were? Is there any other explanation of her performance 
than the ambition, through use of abstract, high-sounding 
phrases, to seem profound? 

It was shown in Chapter XXVI that high seriousness may 
be overindulged. It can be carried, as the observation there 
might have specified, to the point of affectation. Both of our 
quotations would seem to bear this added statement out. Now 
affectation is in essence an attempt to keep everybody—and if 
possible one’s seli—from knowledge of one’s limitations. In 
literary performances like the ones before us, the affectation 
represents effort to make the world believe that one’s “‘style,” 
though possibly agonized over, is one’s easy and everyday 
manner of expression. But affectation, in cases like the pres- 
ent, instead of forestalling rather surely challenges the suspi- 
cion that the writer is suffering from an inferiority complex, 
and is trying to defeat it. There is only one thing worse, 
namely, a superiority complex, or, in one plain word, conceit. 
The accomplishment most covetable here is the courage to 
accept one’s self at face value, write what one’s hand finds to 
write, and “take no thought.” Students born to the use of 
other languages seem to go through no such sophomoric stage. 
Study of French exposition, if one can read that language at 
all readily, will encourage. 

It is not altogether our good fortune that we have inherited 


THE CONCRETE MANNER 285 


two dialects of English, one for speaking and one for writing. 
When we speak, we prevailingly use simple, direct, and pointed 
sentences, made up from our homely, mother-tongue vocabu- 
lary. We have small chance to sort out our words, or judge 
beforehand how our phrase is going to impress our hearer. 
As was pointed out in Chapter XIV, we turn by instinct from 
fact to thought in the commonest: conversation. But we are 
not likely to venture more than one “thought” statement at one 
time. The consciousness of being with others and our sense 
of humor guard us from seeming, or consenting to seem, pro- 
found. 

But when we are by ourselves, and set about the task of 
writing, not letters, but thought substance, we are brought by 
association to think of written diction, and we fall back upon 
our bookish dialect. Having no other companionship, we are 
almost sure to become self-conscious, and if we write one ab- 
stract sentence, to follow it with another, and that with still 
another. If we remember hearing of such a rule, we try, 
after writing two abstract sentences, to have a concrete one 
succeed them. But even this does not produce diction easily 
read by everybody. Persons accustomed to public communi- 
cation by the ear rather than the eye, find themselves at fault 
when they take up an article written in such a vein. When 
such readers come upon discourse piled high with abstract sen- 
tences, they are helpless. This is the sort of writing that they 
call “dry,” and often fail to comprehend at all. 

It was shown, in Chapter X XVI, that it is not difficult to 
dignify and strengthen our meanings by setting them in their 
highest relations to the world of thought. We now note that 
it is equally easy, by an abuse of our reflective powers, to 
weaken the effect of what we wish to say. Combe in our ex- 
ample does this by casting every one of his ideas, not in them- 
selves obscure, in abstract form. At the time (1828) when 
his work was issued, the manner he imitated was going out, 
and concrete writing was coming in. But this country, which 
had produced in the Federalist papers high examples of 18th 
century elaboration, was slow to catch the spirit of the coming 
freedom. Among many examples of the lingering severity, 
we might turn to Vol. I, published in 1834, of Bancroft’s His- 


286 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


tory of the United States. The author has told us that he toiled 
long over the first pages of this book, striving after simple 
and natural language. The diction is observed to grow less 
and less labored as the work proceeds, and attains in the tenth 
volume, appearing in 1874, a practicable suggestiveness and 
fluency. “In this style,” concludes a prominent reviewer of the 
final volume, “the author should now begin over again and 
rewrite the whole.” The following is his first paragraph 
(I. iv) on “The Colonization of Virginia”: 


The period of success in planting colonies in Virginia 
had arrived; yet not till changes had occurred, affecting 
the character of European politics and society, and mould- 
ing the forms of colonization. The reformation had inter- 
rupted the harmony of religious opinion in the west of 
Europe; and differences in the church began to constitute 
the basis of political parties. Commercial intercourse 
equally sustained a revolution. It had been conducted on 
the narrow seas and by land; it now launched out upon 
the broadest waters; and, after the East Indies had been 
reached by doubling the southern promontory of Africa, 
the great commerce of the world was performed upon 
the ocean. The art of printing had become known; and 
the press diffused intelligence and multiplied the facilities 
of instruction. The feudal institutions which had been 
reared in the middle ages, were already undermined by 
the current of time and events, and, swaying from their 
base, threatened to fall. Productive industry had, on the 
one side, built up the fortunes and extended the influence 
of the active classes; while habits of indolence and of 
expense had impaired the estates and diminished the 
power of the nobility. These changes also produced cor- 
responding results in the institutions which were to rise 
in America. 


There is small warrant in the early history of the English 
essay for a prose like this. Montaigne, its reputed progenitor, 
abounds in long illustrations and anecdotes: 


I have often heard it reported that cowardize is the 
mother of cruelty: and have perceived by experience that 
this malicious sharpness and inhumane severitie of corage 
is commonly accompanied with feminine remissenesse. I 
have seene some of the cruelest subject to weepe easily, 


THE CONCRETE MANNER 287 


and for frivolous causes. Alexander the tyrant of Pheres 
could not endure to see tragedies acted in the theatres for 
feare his subjects should see him sob and weepe at the 
misfortunes of Hecuba and Andromache; he who without 
remorse or pitty caused daily so many poore people to 
be most cruelly massacred and barbarously murthered. 
May it be weaknesse of spirit makes them so pliable to 
all extremities? 


We find beginnings of concrete expression in the writings 
of Bacon, who follows Montaigne afar off, and who neverthe- 
less composes whole essays in abstract terms. Here is a typ- 
ical example of his manner, from the opening of his observa- 
tions on Dispatch: 


Affected dispatch is one of the most dangerous things 
to business that can be. It is like that which the physi- 
cians call pre-digestion, or hasty digestion; which is sure 
to fill the body full of crudities and secret seeds of dis- 
eases. Therefore measure not dispatch by the times of 
sitting, but by the advancement of the business. And as 
in races it is not the large stride or high lift that makes 
the speed; so in business, the keeping close to the matter, 
and not taking of it too much at once, procureth dispatch. 
It is the care of some only to come off speedily for the 
time; or to contrive some false periods of business, because 
they may seem men of dispatch. But it is one thing to 
abbreviate by contracting, another by cutting off. And 
business so handled at several sittings or meetings goeth 
commonly backward and forward in an unsteady manner. 
I knew a wise man that had it for a byword, when he 
saw men hasten to a conclusion, “Stay a little, that we 
may make an end the sooner.” 

On the other side, true dispatch is a rich thing. For 
time is the measure of business, as money is of wares; 
and business is brought at a dear hand, where there is 
small dispatch. The Spartans and Spaniards have been 
noted to be of small dispatch; Mi venga la muerte de 
Spagna;—Let my death come from Spain; for then it 
will be sure to be long in comming. 


We see there is evident tendency, in this first stage of essay- 
making, to couple the statement of a principle with an illus- 
tration. This was really to be expected, since it is the natu- 
ral manner of every one in oral exposition or argument with 


288 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


his fellow. It must, however, be noted that Bacon, in the last 
three paragraphs of the present essay, allows himself but a 
single concrete clause. In his list of subjects, fifty-one out of 
fifty-eight titles are abstract. 

Another phase in the growth of concrete diction is illus- 
trated when we find a paragraph or group of abstract state- 
ments followed by a corresponding series of concrete, illus- 
trative sentences. Good examples of this manner, one from 
Shaftesbury’s Characteristics, and one from the essays of Bol- 
ingbroke,—writings produced a century later than Bacon’s 
work, are given for comparison, at the end of this volume. The 
fame of these unexcelled fabricators of prose has been obscured 
by the popularity of Steele and Addison, in spite of the well- 
known fact that the Spectator papers were addressed to the 
common public, and not to readers interested, like Boling- 
broke’s and Shaftesbury’s, in the cultivation of literature as 
one of the fine arts. 

We note here, in the first (p. 311) of these examples—re- 
produced from the edition of 1714—that Lord Shaftesbury is 
discussing the various names under which the essays of his 
day were issued. The first paragraph, barring the reference to 
Seneca, is abstract. Then follows an equally long exemplifica- 
tion of its meanings. In Lord Bolingbroke’s essay (pp. 314- 
317) On Luxury, a dozen lines of abstract text repeatedly 
alternate with as many of illustration, till all is ended with the 
example of Sybaris,—which indeed might well have been made 
into a paragraph by itself. 

By the close of another century, the public of British read- 
ers had expanded greatly through the influx of thousands who 
knew not and cared not for the traditions of the learned class. 
Agreeably to the change in taste, Macaulay contributed in 1825 
an article on Milton to the Edinburgh Review, and by it rose 
to leadership among the essayists of the time. His work 
seemed to rival in fascination the novels of Scott, then in the 
heyday of his strength. He popularized his manner still fur- 
ther in the History, which was designed to carry its meaning 
to the commonest intelligence, and forestall the re-reading of 
any sentence. An examination of the language in Muiulton 
shows that approximately two-thirds of its matter is concrete. 


THE CONCRETE MANNER 289 


In 1821, four years before this paper was published, De Quin- 
cey’s Confessions of an Opium Eater had opened for its au- 
thor a great career in the same field. His style, less concrete 
than Macaulay’s, was more brilliant and spontaneous, and more 
pleasing to the educated class. In this country, as late as 1870, 
college teachers of rhetoric were holding up De Quincey as 
the necessary model for all those aspiring to become masters 
of a literary style. 

Under the influence of these authors, the literary essay 
reached its highest currency and prestige. It was now to part 
with much of its remaining formality, and take on yet more of 
the pithiness and sprightliness of the great conversers. Hith- 
erto people had written essays often for the sake of making 
essays, of bolstering out a fashionable type of literary prod- 
uct. They now began to work with less and less professional- 
ism, with less and less attention to style as such, and with more 
and more reference to results. This specimen of a new man- 
ner, dating from the last years of both De Quincey and Ma- 
caulay, demonstrates how radical were the forces at work re- 
making English exposition in spirit as well as form: 


Self-made men? Well, yes. Of course everybody likes 
and respects self-made men. It is a great deal better to 
be made in that way than not to be made at all. Are any 
of you people old enough to remember that Irishman’s 
house on the marsh at Cambridgeport, which house he 
built from drain to chimney-top with his own hands? It 
took him a good many years to build it, and one could see 
that it was a little out of plumb, and a little wavy in 
outline, and a little queer and uncertain in general aspect. 
A regular hand could certainly have built a better house; 
but it was a very good house for a “self-made” carpen- 
ter’s house, and people praised it, and said how remark- 
ably the Irishman succeeded. They never thought of 
praising the fine blocks of houses a little further on. 


We can easily imagine how this theme of the self-made man 
would have been handled in De Quincey’s effortless and Ma- 
caulay’s motivated manner. From De Quincey we should 
have had pages on pages of brilliant, and perhaps not altogether 
relevant, discussion. We can also fancy how one writing by 


290 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


Bolingbroke’s or Shaftesbury’s method might dispatch it in 
two paragraphs. In the first or abstract part of the treatment, 
we should have a definition of the self-made, as one denied 
the advantages of education, leisure for travel, knowledge of 
the world, and wide experience in affairs. There would be also 
some reference to consequent defects, as ignorance of the past, 
incertitude, general provincialism of thought and action. Then, 
in the concrete portion, would follow consideration of in- 
stances, as Andrew Johnson, his inexperience, his mistakes, 
his failure. 

In contrast with this, the writer in the present instance has 
managed, by a touch or two, to make the second of two such 
paragraphs do the work of both. He takes as his example of 
the self-made, not a publicist from history, but an Irishman 
from the street, and puts him to a test that everybody can com- 
prehend. The outcome is not a marred career, but an erratic 
building that serves as an object lesson to the whole com- 
munity. The unstandardized work of a self-made carpenter 
is more palpable and visual than the unstandardized services of 
a statesman, a clergyman, or a doctor, and is made here to 
suggest potentially all other kinds. While the formal essayist 
would have been specifying what he intended to write about, or 
surveying the field, and perhaps making us doubt whether we 
cared at all to read him, this man tells us, in the first four 
lines, his theme, and carries us into the heart of his argument 
besides. Best of all, he does not think it necessary to inform 
his reader, at the close, of what he has been doing. 

While our example is conversational rather than conven- 
tional, it illustrates in a somewhat exaggerated degree the 
terseness and verve of modern exposition. The secret of its 
takingness and strength lies in the amount of thinking that the 
author is willing to let the reader do for himself. The vast 
increase in the volume of expository writing, and the growing 
intensity of mental life, enforce this economy of space and ef- 
fort. The discussions of the day are sometimes literary, some- 
times business-like, and sometimes literary and business-like 
together. Essays will still of course be written, and delectably, 
after the classic manner of Lamb and Addison. But the slow, 
meditational mode of treatment, and the manifest aim to ex- 


THE CONCRETE MANNER 291 


ploit the essay type at any cost, limits its audience to an elected 
few. The essay with a purpose, which may be said to have 
come in with Hazlitt, and to have overshadowed the earlier 
type, has taken on a variety of forms. In each of these it is 
clear and forceful, but is still wanting in the attractiveness, the 
deliberate touch essential to all great art. 

Literary art is not less possible in exposition than in poetry 
and fiction. The concrete manner has other aims and aspects 
and methods than the displacement of abstract diction by con- 
crete sentences, and the use of analogy as seen in the illustration 
from Holmes (Autocrat of the Breakfast Table) just quoted. 
It was indeed by these very papers that the possibilities of the 
mode were first demonstrated fully. In the work so named, 
Holmes musters an astonishing variety of essay substance, and 
while administering it incidentally, much in the manner of a 
Madame de Staél or Madame de Circourt in her Paris salon, 
yet lays claim to the functions and prerogatives of an essay- 
maker. By it he lifted thousands of unlettered minds to the 
level of literary ideas throughout the English-speaking world. 
His “‘breakfast-tables” were nothing other than an open device, 
like De Amicis’s delayed entry into Constantinople, to arouse 
and engage popular attention. 

A more specific and unified example of the concrete manner, 
employed in all seriousness and with conscious literary art, 
to elucidate an obscure and difficult subject, is Victor Ryd- 
berg’s essay on “The Magic of the Learned.” ‘This forms the 
third division of his Magic of the Middle Ages (Medeltidens 
Magi), published in 1864. In this part of the work, Profes- 
sor Rydberg, Swedish novelist and poet, presents the results of 
his research into the intricacies of magic. A generation ear- 
lier, he would undoubtedly have brought his materials together 
in the shape of a monograph, which only scholars would have 
read. Since scholars had less need of assistance than anybody 
else, he addressed his essay to the common public in a form 
that has proved fascinating to every sort of reader, scholars 
not excepted. As an especially illuminating example, and 
ideally practicable for study, we have included it with omission 
of a few unimportant passages, among the illustrations at the 
end of the present volume. 


292 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


Professor Rydberg begins by giving his readers (p. 331) a 
clear notion concerning the state of learning at the universi- 
ties in the Middle Age. He does this, not by making general 
statements, but by bringing each of us with him to the doors 
of lecture halls, and letting us judge for ourselves how abstract 
and profitless was the knowledge administered within. It is 
then easy to make us see and feel (p. 334) why men of the 
highest aspirations gave over learning for magic. Science is 
strongly alluring students to-day, with its definite laboratory 
problems, from greatly enriched and simplified classical stud- 
ies. We are helped here to realize how much greater must 
have been its charm, in the primitive forms of alchemy and 
magic, in the days of Faust. 

After introducing us to the person and the surroundings of 
the magician (p. 335) in his tower, Rydberg makes him ex- 
pound to us the main principles of his system (pp. 338-346) in 
its own terms. He is next caused to explain (pp. 348-353) the 
preliminaries of a proposed conjuration. By the consummate 
device of having it performed for us, and with our aid, while 
each stands clothed in the robes of an acolyte within the pro- 
tected circle, the author succeeds to a surprising degree in 
bringing back to reality the atmosphere of the age, and the 
fearful fascination of its beliefs. This, we recognize, is ad- 
ministered to us in (p. 3560) the causal way. 

But the Concrete Manner may be applied not only to the re- 
habilitation of a lost art and an exploded philosophy, but more 
satisfyingly to the elucidation of important living issues. Its 
values are greatest in matters which, because of complexity 
and contradictory features, baffle the lay mind. Up-to-date il- 
lustrations lie ready to our hand. In recent magazine articles, 
Professor Stuart P. Sherman has surprisingly clarified public 
thinking on the ethic quality of present-day novels, and on the 
sanctionable eligibility of suitors to one’s daughters. But the 
crowning number (Atlantic Monthly for May, 1924), of the 
series, which ventilates the claims and place of “Bacchus” in 
modern life, is probably the most typical and finished: example 
—hbarring the hurry of closing paragraphs—of the manner in 
question to be found in literature. This paper, with Rydberg’s 


THE CONCRETE MANNER 293 


contribution, may be considered also as illustrations of Exposi- 
tion by Narration. 

Thus is the concrete method seen to be no new system of 
presentation, but an old one rediscovered and reapplied. We 
call it the modern objective or “laboratory” method. But it 
is as old as the visit of the prophet Nathan to King David, old 
as the Dialogues of Plato, or the Cyropedia of Xenophon, old 
as the parables of the Christ. It is the method by which the 
father teaches his trade to his son, or the mother, housewifery 
to her daughter. It is the method of the ballad-maker and the 
poet. It is the manner of the cartoon artist, so much dreaded 
by the political spoilsman and the boss. By it Scott’s Demonol- 
ogy might have rivalled Kenilworth or Quentin Durward in 
popularity. It is the method of Carlyle in Sartor Resartus, of 
Turgenev’s Sportsman’s Sketches, of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, of 
Browning’s How They Brought the Good News, of Black 
Beauty, of Silvio Pellico’s protest, in My Prisons, against the 
tyranny of Austria. It is the method by which Henry Ward 
Beecher preached most powerfully against chattel slavery, not 
by a sermon, but by selling a beautiful slave girl at auction on 
the platform of Plymouth church. 

The concrete manner is evidently an important subject of 
study. It reduces the bulk of written communication, since 
it expresses by implication or by example much of what for- 
mal writers feel bound to set forth summarizingly in generals 
or in details. It conserves and concentrates the energy of 
both author and reader. It gives exercise to the highest liter- 
ary art, not only in character-drawing and other matters of 
execution, but in organizing and ordering the materials to be 
used. It includes all forms of the drama among its modes. 
It would seem as worthy of consideration, from the academic 
mind, as the binomial theorem or cube root. 


EXERCISES 


1. Select, from outside life or books, some idea or subject valu- 
able for people to know, but unlikely because of intricacy or diff- 
culty to appeal to readers. Devise means by which it may be made 


294 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


to arrest and absorb the common mind. Carry out the plan, and 
report trial of its success. 

2. Examine the style of some former exercise Pcknostian and 
show how in details it might be recast more attractively. Add in 
your report the number of abstract and of concrete clauses used 
in your first treatment of this theme. 

3. Examine some expository paper in the Century, or other 
standard magazine, that has engaged your attention and proved 
readable throughout. Show what qualities of style or manner 
have enabled this success. 

4. Make report upon some novel of the day that opens tak- 
ingly. Show how far the attractiveness, apart from the presen- 
tation of character, is due to the plan of handling. 

5. Search out, or recall from recent reading, some example of 
treatment similar to Rydberg’s in the “Magic of the Learned,” and 
outline the manner of its strategy or art. 

6. Plan the history of your family, or some other history, in 
such detail as to fill three chapters. 

7. Develop, with imaginative appeals and other modes, the first 
of these chapters. 

8. Make an interpretation of Browning’s How They Brought 
the Good News, showing its idea and purpose, and the use made 
by the author in it of the concrete manner. 

9. Show whether Meredith’s Evan Harrington is a novel with 
a purpose. If it is found to be such, explain how its chief idea 
might have been presented in another way. 

10. For a more recent example, study the art and meaning of 
Edna Ferber’s So Big, and write a succinct appreciation. 

11. Choosing some division of Holmes’s Poet at the Breakfast 
Table, show the ideas he has in mind, and his manner of present- 
ing them severally. 

12. Study the question of presenting effectively some principle 
that has impressed you, and outline the plan of treatment in a 
novel or in some other of the concrete modes. 

13. Read and describe the plan of Howells’s Through the Eye 
of the Needle. Prepare the outline of an exposition, in the older 
form, by which the subject might have been treated. 


CHAPTER XXIX 
SOLECISMS AND INFELICITIES 


PRACTICE supported by usage, but one to be discour- 

aged in careful writing, is the employment of “he,” or 
“she,” or “it,” or “they,” or indeed any other pronoun, to 
represent more than a single antecedent in the same clause or 
sentence. 

The effect of signifying more than one idea, in a single 
statement, by the same pronoun, is to reduce clearness, and 
sometimes to cause confusion. In the following clauses, there 
is no real ambiguity, but the strength of the communication is 
impaired : 


A force of 12,000 Wellington veterans, relieved by the 
victory of Toulouse for American service, landed below 
New Orleans. Jackson had 6,000 men to meet them, but 
they were well protected by breastworks. 


Here all chance of doubt or delay in the reader’s understand- 
ing of the sense might have been forestalled by a different 
construction of the second sentence, or by substituting “his 
troops” or some equivalent expression for “they” in the last 
line. 

There is still greater disquiet or loss of energy, for the 
reader, when the matter presented is not fact but thought. 
The following is an average example of unstandardized, un- 
considered diction purporting to be literary: 


But they do not observe that history acts more consist- 
ently than they, and cures general errors only by making 
long generations draw from them the last consequences, 
and suffer their full effect. 


There is infelicity if not impropriety in putting “history,” 
and “they’—standing in the text for “defenders’”—together 
295 


296 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


as belonging in the same class of agents. If the personifica- 
tion is to stand, the sentence should be divided, and the parts 
recast. It is possible that unity of thought in the author’s 
mind prevented him from expressing his meaning in two dis- 
tinct periods. Even in that case he should have declined the 
task of putting the whole weight of his idea upon a single 
sentence. We can preserve the essential unity, while we di- 
vide, by some such arrangement as this: 


But they do not observe that the acts of history are 
more consistent than their own. It has also escaped their 
notice that history cures general errors in no other way 
than by making many generations draw from them the 
last consequences, and suffer their effect to the full. 


Attention to the principle in question would spare us many 
tandem construction of the relative and interrogative pronouns. 
Examples of this kind are common in oral English, and some- 
times find their way into what is offered as literary diction: 


... That the generations to come might know them, 
even the children that should be born, who should arise 
and tell them to their children. 


The affection of this woman became matter of suspi- 
cion, not indeed to the Laird, who was never hasty in sus- 
pecting evil, but to his wife, who had indifferent health 
and poor spirits. 


She then showed him, by another schedule, the large 
claims of which payment was instantly demanded, to dis- 
charge which no funds could be found or assigned. 


While he debated how to address this unexpected appa- 
rition, it disappeared from the point which it first occu- ~ 
pied, and presently after became again visible, perched 
on the cliff out of which projected the tree in which Ar- 
thur had taken refuge. 


The difference is not great between these cases and such 
as the following, once frequently met with in good literature, 
but now, because of our shorter-sentence manner, happily be- 
coming unusual: 


SOLECISMS AND INFELICITIES 297 


Jupiter, with his accustomed caution, before seizing the 
insect, which had flown towards him, looked about him 
for a leaf, or something of that nature, by which to take 
hold of it. 


Literary people are not always so strict in respecting 
property of this description; and I know more than one 
celebrated man, who professes as a maxim, that he holds 
it no duty of honor to restore a borrowed book; not to 
speak of many less celebrated persons, who, without openly 
professing such a principle, do however, in fact, exhibit 
a lax morality in such cases. 


But the question is not whether the maiden herself prac- 
tices sorcery, which he who avers had better get ready his 
tomb, and provide for his soul’s safety; the doubt lies 
here, whether, as the descendant of a family whose rela- 
tions with the unseen world are reported to have been of 
the closest degree, selfish and fantastical beings may not 
have power to imitate her form, and to present her ap- 
pearance where she is not personally present,—in fine, 
whether they have permission to play at her expense 
tricks, which they cannot exercise over other mortals, 
whose forefathers have ever regulated their lives by the 
rules of the Church, and died in regular communion 
with it. 


A broad application of the same principle would reduce the 
frequency of certain other tandem constructions, wanting, to 
say the least, in elegance. Among these is the use of an infini- 
tive with its sign “to” as the complement of another infinitive 
preceded by the same sign. “I made him offer to escort the 
company,” offends less than “I forced him to offer to escort 
the company.” Similarly, the employment of a phrase intro- 
duced by “of” following another noun governed by the same 
preposition, carries with it an echoing suggestion that tends to 
confusion of thought: 


The pick of the officers of the regiment. 


As I put my foot over the threshold, I became aware 
of the figure of a youth of about my own height. 


I heard with dismay the unmistakable sound of the clos- 
ing of the compartment of the car in which I had caught 
sight of the object of my search. 


298 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


On account of the modern tendency to restrict the use of the 
possessive case to instances of real possession, and to subjective 
genitive constructions, the preposition “of” is used more now 
than in earlier periods of English prose development. With 
a little attention, to avoid repeating it in the same part of the 
sentence, we can assist in preventing the threatened abuse of 
this word. 

The common impulse to suppress clauses, and otherwise con- 
dense our diction, has led to increased employment of “his,” 
“her,” “its,” and other possessives, as objective genitives. In 
the sentence,— 


This is an important subject, and J move its immediate 
consideration, 


“its” is in sense object of the verb-idea “‘consider” in the ac- 
tive noun “consideration” formed from it, and should be put 
in right relations with it more distinctly. The speaker was 
doubtless subconsciously averse to employing a second clause, 
—‘that it be considered immediately,” and used “its immedi- 
ate consideration” as a substitute. But “consideration of it 
immediately” is what, if unwilling to say “I move that it be 
immediately considered,” he should have used. There is no 
other approvable object-genitive construction. 

Similarly, we not seldom hear and see sentences like this,— 


I confidently expected her conviction. 


“Her conviction” is of course correct in grammatical form, but 
not in grammatical sense. Conviction is not a thing to be pos- 
sessed, but suffered. In other words, the possessive “her” has 
been forced back into its old objective-genitive sense, now in- 
consistent with its present adjective value. The speaker was 
evidently controlled by a standing purpose to be succinct, and 
save the use of an extra predication,— 


I confidently expected that she would be convicted. 


Even had there been no other means of expression, such as 
“expected to see her convicted,” or “expected a verdict of con- 
viction,” it would be better to suffer distention of the sense by 


~SOLECISMS AND INFELICITIES 299 


employing this second clause than sanction an objectionable 
locution. 

In poetry, and in phrases like “for conscience’ sake,” ‘‘a day’s 
sail,” “a week’s vacation,’ which have become naturalized to 
the ear, looser possessive relations are approved. But posses- 
sives of personified ideas, as “Science’s conclusions,” “India’s 
revenue,” “Turkey’s debt,” “Philadelphia’s mayor,” should be 
used, if at all, advisedly. On the other hand, the employment 
of the possessive case to denote the author of an action, as in 
“Cesar’s triumph,” “Richard’s entry,’ “Napoleon’s retreat,” 
and the like, in which possessive forms, doing the work of 
verb-subjects, are properly subjective genitives, seems not to 
be losing but gaining ground. 

One should beware of using nouns in psuedo-apposition with 
possessives as in 


+9 


No further references to Newman’s life as a student 
are met with. 


Here “student” agrees in form with “life” and in sense with 
the nominative case of “Newman’s.” Many examples occur 
in which a noun is constructed in psuedo-apposition with “his” 
or some similar possessive adjective; as “not to mention his 
eminence as a surgeon.” Here a proper equivalent would be 
“his eminence in surgery.” In the former instance, some such 
form as “references to Newman’s student life,’ or “‘life in 
student years,” would have saved the palpable friction caused 
by the unexpected turn of phrase. 

Every writer should take care to eliminate all inadvertent 
echoed or punning expressions, like “Give me one too,” from 
his work. Anything likely to draw attention from the thought 
to peculiarities in the manner in which it is expressed should 
be sedulously avoided. Attempts to condense by implying 
parallel constructions should be managed in a way to fore- 
stall querulous as well as just reproof. In a book by a pro- 
fessional writer of the day, this sentence has been allowed to 
stand: 


The idea that there is a kind of inequality for a woman 
in minding her own business and letting man do the 


300 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


same, comes from our confused and rather stupid notion 
of the meaning of inequality. 


The author was surely aware that there is a large difference, 
in a case of this kind, between saying “the same” and “the 
like,” but evidently lost sense of it here in the attempt to unify 
both sides of the thought. To the ill-natured reader, a slip 
like this spoils all the effect of the passage, if not of the vol- 
ume. The fault in the following—from a standard magazine 
—is even worse: 


Woman has her place in train or tram—and so has 
man. She has her place on street or sidewalk, and so 
has he. 


This reads like a burlesque of sound writing. There is fault 
in the spirit as well as in the form. There is a sort of precipi- 
tancy, in such styles, which belongs to the newspaper rather 
than to literature, and which often dilates as well as clips the 
sense in the same sentence; as here: 


She is a woman who has lived every minute of her 
life, and lives them still, and can make them, and does 
make them, alive for you and me and for all of us. 


Here, “lives them” is unprofitably condensed from “lives all 
of them,” or “‘each of them,” in the first half. In the second 
half of the period, the simple meaning, “‘can also make them 
alive for every reader,” is expanded and multiplied with small 
gain in power. 

There is a large difference between using the free, unpe- 
dantic sentence-forms of oral speech, and employing its col- 
loquialisms, its vocabulary, or its general abandon. Authors 
must to-day write in simple, unprofessional, businesslike dic- 
tion, and without waste of words. A generation ago, when 
the movement towards simplification of English styles was at 
its height, certain reformers used the contractions “isn’t,” 
“can’t,” “don’t,” ““won’t” in their most elaborated diction. But 
their following has not increased. There is a standard of dig- 
nity which the public expects its makers of literature to main- 


SOLECISMS AND INFELICITIES 301 


tain. The writer who is not willing to meet this expectation 
will forfeit much of his influence and success. 

Sometimes, at the beginning of a fresh paragraph, the main 
subject of thought is carried forward by “he” or “it” or ‘‘they,” 
even when the antecedent is distant or doubtful. This is the 
opening sentence from a new division of the matter in an 
essay : 


He was always in trepidation when he faced an audi- 
ence, and unconfident of his power to move it. 


In the paragraphs preceding, Webster, Everett, and Wendell 
Phillips are compared, Phillips being mentioned last. But this 
we did not notice, and so stopped our reading to look back and 
verify. To save the moment of question as to which of the 
orators was now to be considered further, “Phillips”? should 
stand in place of “he.” Indeed, were no other person under 
consideration, there would have been superior dignity in pre- 
senting the name of the subject anew. By our present system 
of paragraphing—which is more formal than could be ap- 
proved by authority in certain other literatures, as for instance, 
French—each integral division is theoretically independent, 
and may in general mention again its topic noun. 

There are various faults of diction, as well as of construc- 
tion, which we should be on our guard to forestall. One of 
these is the vice of mannerisms. 

Many of us have devised or adopted turns of expression 
which are especially agreeable to our ear, and which we per- 
haps use incessantly in ordinary talk. Any such overuse of 
favorite phrases must be excluded from our writing. We 
should be diligent in suppressing every sign that would tend 
to prove us addicted to either erratic or stereotyped forms of 
expression. Anything that argues indifference to the claims of 
taste will distress the reader, and perhaps induce the vision 
of an unworthy personality. 

One of the latest phases of progress in written English is 
the employment of a “Factor of Safety.” This phrase, bor- 
rowed from the technical dialect of Engineering, signifies add- 
ing an element of strength, beyond conceivable emergencies, to 


302 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


bridge girders or like mechanical devices. We may employ it 
with reference to rhetorical effectiveness, and as making the 
expression of one’s meaning a little clearer than the slower 
or less attentive intelligence is likely to require. This “factor” 
is no new expedient or element proposed by some literary 
philosopher. It has probably been mentioned in no elementary 
or other textbook of composition. But it is one of the earliest 
elements in our mastery of oral communication. Perhaps be- 
fore we reach the age of ten we have learned subconsciously 
how to forestall request from our hearer that we repeat our 
sentence. In somewhat later years most of us eliminate even 
the chance of restating or recasting our periods by making 
them a little clearer than any listener will require. 

While we are aiming at negative excellence, in repairing in- 
felicitous diction, we should not forget the positive merits by 
which literature lives and grows. All good writers are expected 
to compass various verbal felicities of their own. Each of us 
hits upon happy turns of phrase, from time to time, in oral 
English. We should aspire and expect to reach similar indi- 
viduality of excellence in our written styles. Corresponding to 
the immortal phrase in poetry are high and noble groupings of 
elements in forms of prose. All our best writers, as Alice 
Meynell, Howells, Galsworthy, Pater, Hawthorne, have set 
their standards upon this plane. We shall not perhaps soon 
share their art of minting golden phrases, but we can make 
ourselves of their company by noting and pondering and priz- 
ing their finest work. Our language is still in a plastic state. 
It can be vulgarized, it can be sublimated, beyond known lim- 
its. We can help refine it by refusing to write ill, and by 
utilizing each best expression that comes to us in a flash of 
insight. We shall aid perhaps not less by owning literary al- 
legiance to none but the world’s great masters. 


EXERCISES 
1. Improve the English in the following sentences: 


No one much noticed the halo on Latmos’s top till Keats 
called attention to it by laying the scene of Endymion 
on it. 


SOLECISMS AND INFELICITIES 303 
I came home and found her gone. 
I had just time to get my breath, and so had he. 


The size of the mob was formidable, and expecting its 
enlargement, I sent for the mounted police. 


2. Write the second installment of your family history. 

3. Examine the first pages in Chapter II of Bancroft’s History 
of the United States, and report your impressions concerning the 
clearness and effectiveness of its style. 

4. Examine two or three chapters of Motley’s Rise of the Dutch 
Republic, and, comparing its style with Bancroft’s, make a criti- 
cism and appreciation. 

5. Compare with your impressions the criticisms of these au- 
thors quoted in Allibone’s Dictionary. In default of Allibone, 
consult like judgments in the encyclopedias. Report the views, 
concerning each, that seem most conservative and sound, and jus- 
tify your conclusions. 

6. Consider which of the textbooks or reference books in his- 
tory is clearest and most effectual in style. Find and report the 
reasons for your judgment. 

7. Make an idiomatic translation of some section or other di- 
vision in the Latin or German author that you are now studying. 
Try whether you can eliminate all foreign or unnatural locutions. 

8. Read the first three papers in Holmes’s Autocrat of the 
Breakfast Table, making note of your impressions as you read. 
Write an appreciative criticism, showing what, in tone, matter, or 
method, you would wish altered. 

g. Examine the style of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, as also the char- 
acterizations, and the paragraphs, and make report of your im- 
pressions. 

10. Read five of Hawthorne’s Twice Told Tales, and compare 
in style, character-drawing, paragraphing, and vividness, with 
short stories of the day. 

11. Take up any one of the accessible new books, and report 
whether its style is heavy, careless, flippant, vulgar, or standard- 
ized. 

12. In the writings of Walter Savage Landor find examples of 
the Concrete Manner, and show how they resemble and do not 
resemble the forms studied in the last chapter. 


CHAPTER XXX 
SYSTEMATIC CRITICISM 


WRITER in The New York Times Review of Books 
not long since ventured the dictum that the excellence of 
a book lies in four directions,— 


riot, 

2. Description, 

3. Character Drawing, 

4. Dialogue or Conversation. 


Evidently this critic assumes that “book” means “novel.” 
Even admitting that it is not necessary to inquire in what 
directions the excellencies of other literary forms would “lie,” 
we may observe that there are merits in fiction which this anal- 
ysis does not recognize. We might accept his four points of 
worth, but should include with them (5) Narration, (6) Orig- 
inality, as defined and illustrated in Chapter XXI, and (7) 
Exposition, incidental or other. Then should we not add (8) 
Clearness, and (9) Takingness and Effectiveness of Style? 

Indeed, were one to attempt specifying points by which in- 
ductive criticism might proceed, it would be necessary to recog- 
nize other qualities not indicated or implied under these heads. 
One certainly would be the merit of adaptation between parts, 
as well as between means and end. There is also the author’s 
individual way of doing things, which in the large is called 
Art, but in minor matters of execution, Technic. As these are 
complex notions, and have been covered to some extent by 
studies made already in narration, description, character-draw- 
ing, presentation of moods or emotions, and drafting or strat- 
egy of approach, we leave them out of our first attempt at a 
division of values. Adding Proportion to the nine essentials 
already enumerated, we shall have ten points on which conflict- 


ing claims to literary recognition might be appraised. 
304 


SYSTEMATIC CRITICISM 305 


There seems small question that the Times critic is funda- 
mentally right in his assumption that the excellence of a piece 
of literature is composite, a resultant of approvals and disap- 
provals, as in the reader’s mind, of distinct parts or features. 
A few years ago, the proposal to submit a literary production 
to analysis would have been discouraged. It was indeed al- 
leged that conscious recognition or estimation of elements 
would spoil all enjoyment of a literary product. This stricture, 
however, has not been thought applicable to analytical criti- 
cism or appreciation of master-works in painting or sculpture. 
It has not been heard of concerning literary judgments for 
some time. A corollary to the objection was that a literary 
masterpiece was an organic unity, and not to be looked upon 
as constructed of lower organic elements or units. 

We seem to be emerging from the personal, a priore stage in 
criticism. Once we did not separate or distinguish our im- 
pressions. We took the whole and estimated it in the gross, 
refusing to make note of lesser units or elements of value. 
Even if it were the method generally in classic times, the 
modern world is not bound, under an inductive system of 
things, to perpetuate it. It was once the accepted mode of 
adjudging the blue ribbon in dog shows and county fairs. We 
have now begun to judge debates, prize drills, and contests for 
the best short stories and plays and novels and essays on 
economic subjects, by points. 

In considering the rank of a given writer, we shall come short 
of exact and intelligent criticism if any one of the ten essen- 
tials, just detailed, is ignored. Good characterization and un- 
natural dialogue offset each other. To praise the character- 
drawing and refuse attention to the bad diction in which it is 
couched is as unfair as to condemn the style and avoid men- 
tion of the characterization. Still more necessary is it to judge 
on all these points when two or more writers are concerned. 
When but a single quality is considered, comparison and a 
just conclusion should not be difficult. When all the merits 
or deficiencies of two or more authors are supposably passed 
in review, the task becomes formidable. Yet few critics hesi- 
tate to hazard unqualified judgments, in such cases, as to the 
major or the greatest worth. | 


306 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


Criticism is an attempt to estimate, with reference to stand- 
ards of perfection, the worth of objects produced by art. But 
there are as yet no established or accepted standards of any 
kind. Criticism therefore amounts to little more than an esti- 
mation, according to the critic’s individual ideas of truth and 
of the beautiful, of the qualities in a given work or writer. 
Judgments as to literary values are in consequence singularly 
personal and conflicting. Each critic attempts to anticipate, 
by his own unsupported conclusions, the verdict of the thou- 
sands who compose the ultimate court of literary judicature. 
He may sometimes easily be right. He has been found too 
often to be absurdly wrong. A generation or more ago Bicker- 
steth’s Yesterday, To-day, and Forever was declared by critics 
of distinction to rank with Paradise Lost. That strange poem 
is not even mentioned now. 

Any attempt to judge what work of art is best, or better, must 
involve primarily recognition of all qualities that make for ex- 
cellence or its opposite in each of the examples considered. 
Some new merit may appear in one, and be absent from the 
others. Just valuation of the excess in the one, and the de- 
fault in others, must go into the summation. If we are to com- 
pare Meredith with Carlyle, it will not be just to match merely 
the philosophy of the one with the philosophy of the other. 
Nor must we set The Egoist in the shadow of Sartor Resartus, 
but over against the extant chapters of Wotton Reinfred. 
Again, measures must be taken to correct aberrations of judg- 
ment. The usual method is to require at least three judges. 
This is not unknown in literary criticism, though common in 
fixing merit in other arts than letters. 

It seems certain that in no long time some systematic means 
of comparing rival literary claims will be proposed. The pub- 
lic is growing intolerant of the personal and unscientific tem- 
per in which its favorite authors are dispatched. To familiar- 
ize ourselves better with the need, we might each practice some 
general evaluation under ten heads of merit, five of matter and 
five of manner, and compare results. Leaving aside the Times 
idea of treating fiction, let us try out, at least 95, saciooreb the 
prize essays, or orations, some Pf" WwiSional or suggestive scheme 


like the one now ventured: “ 
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308 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


Exercises of this sort will be found helpful also in bringing 
home to each one of us the complexities and uncertainties of 
responsible criticism. We shall feel ourselves constituted, for 
the time being, as members of a jury having the well-being, 
and in some sense perhaps the future, of our fellows in our 
hands. Our decisions will be like, in kind, to the public ver- 
dict, which is framed in a never-adjourning ecumenical coun- 
cil of all wise minds, and which for any given age is final. In- 
deed there should be exercises in constructive criticism, as a 
part of the work, in all advanced study of literature and au- 
thors. 

The art of literature is the greatest of all arts. The great- 
ness of art consists in the completeness of its utterance, of its 
“saying.” Painting and music declare the vision of the seer 
who has turned artist or composer, for the moment, in order 
to make his seeing known. Language is the means by which 
the vision of the poet must be told. As a medium of expres- 
sion, it is superior to forms, to colors, to chiaro-oscuro, to 
tones which his rival artists use. But neither can he, more 
than they, express the products of insight completely. “The 
highest,” says Goethe, among the greatest of modern seers, 
“cannot be spoken.” 

But while the poet cannot set forth, in words, his highest 
meaning, he can inspire an experience of it in another by means 
of literary art. I cannot make over my conception to my 
reader, but I can enable him to attain one like it for himself. 
By appeals to his imagination, I can stimulate him to see, if 
not the same vision, at least one its counterpart, perhaps 
stronger, nobler. The artist cannot command pigments that 
will express all hues, nor can the composer find tones to sug- 
gest all passions, or indeed all moods. But literature has such 
power in its enablements and imaginative expedients that its 
limitations lie more in the insight of its makers than in their 
art. 

Hence, to judge literary values fully, one must recognize 
more than ten points of value, often more than twenty or 
any other number that can be prescribed beforehand. In a 
new masterwork, new illuminating devices may appear. Just 
appreciation is the despair of true and faithful spirits, for they 


SYSTEMATIC CRITICISM 309 


must often fail of the artist’s deeper seeing, fail of his fresher 
technic of expression. The art of literature is hardly beyond 
its infancy. We can but pray that critics of the future may © 
deal less confidently with the discoverers of their time than the 
critics of the last century dealt with Shelley and Keats and 
Browning when these voices first ventured to speak in an un- 
known language to the world. 


EXERCISES 


1. Choose out from Harper’s or Scribner’s two short stories, 
read each with care, and estimate, by general impressions, the lit- 
erary value of the one as against the other. Make a record of 
your judgments. 

2. By the system of points suggested in the present chapter, 
make a criticism and appreciation of the same stories. Compare 
the results with your former judgments. 

3. Using the same material, and the same system, review and 
discuss the ten points of literary value, and by major vote upon 
these severally make up, as a class, a verdict upon each specimen. 
Compare results with the individual judgments obtained before. 

4. Devise a new system of ten points, five of matter, five of 
manner, and by it evaluate three debates prepared on the same 
side of some live question of the hour. 

5. Write the third installment of your family history. 

6. Let the several family histories be judged, each by all mem- 
bers except its author, with respect to merit in description, narra- 
tion, characterization, exposition, and other points of worth. Let 
the judgment of the class be determined on all these points, and 
on each history as a whole. 

7. What is the form-type in the student’s eye-shade? What, 
in the hobble skirt? 

8 Give your judgment as to the ake quality of these ex- 
amples respectively :— 


His dark hair grew back in a sickle on each temple. 


St. John floundered up out of his chair with seal-like 
struggles. “Do you want the furniture,” he panted. 


As I watched him I was irresistibly reminded of a pure- 
blooded well-trained fox-hound as it dashes backward and 


810 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


forward through the covert, whining in its eagerness, 
until it comes across the lost scent. 


9. Show what is wrong with the following sentences severally, 
and correct: 


Having had many years of varied experience, this school 
was established. 


A skein of black shoestrings was suspended from each 
corner of the vender’s cart. 


I have forgotten who you said it was expected to have 
sing. 


10. Let each member of the class search out and determine 
what, in his judgment, is the best example of clear and attractive 
English in current periodicals, and report in an appreciative criti- 
cism, 

11. Have all the selections considered in committee of the whole, 
and, at the end of the conference, find whether any single style is 
approved by all the members. 

12. Show what specific arguments and views are concretized in 
(p. 292) the “Cornelia and Bacchus” contribution. 

13. Examine Browning’s Men and Women series and report 
upon any three poems that you find presented in the Concrete 
Manner. 

14. Find which of Tennyson’s longer poems has been planned 
and executed in the Concrete Manner, and discuss the art. 


CHAPTER XXXI 


ILLUSTRATIONS 
I 
Characteristics 


By 
EarL ANTHONY COOPER SHAFTESBURY 


VOL, III, MISCELLANY I, CHAPTER III 


T is a different Cafe indeed, when the Title of Epiftle is 

improperly given to fuch Works as were never writ in any 
other view than that of being made publick, or to ferve as Ex- 
ercifes or Specimens of the Wit of their Compofer. Such 
were thofe infinite Numbers of Greek and Latin Epiftles, writ 
by the antient Sophifts, Grammarians, or Rhetoricians; where 
we find the real Character of the Epzftle, the genuine Stile 
and Manners of the correfponding Partys fometimes imitated ; 
but at other times not so much as aim’d at, nor any Meafures 
of Hiftorical Truth preferv’d. Such perhaps we may elteem 
even the Letters of a SENECA to his Friend Lucizttus. Or, 
{uppofing that Philofophical Courtier had really such a Cor- 
respondency; and, at several times, had sent so many fair 
Epiftles, honeftly fign’d and seal’d, to his Country-Friend at a 
diftance; it appears however by the Epiftles themselves, in 
their proper Order (if they may be said to have any) that 
after a few Attempts at the beginning, the Author by degrees 
lofes fight of his Correfpondent, and takes the World in gen- 
eral for his Reader or Difciple. He falls into the random way 
of Mifcellaneous Writing; fays every-where great and noble 
Things, in and out of the way, accidentally as Words lead him 
(for with thefe he plays perpetually;) with infinite Wit, but 

311 


312 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


with little or no Coherence; without a Shape or Body to his 
Work; without a real Beginning, a Middle, or an End. Of a 
hundred and twenty four Epiltles, you may, if you pleafe, 
make five Hundred, or half a Score. A great-one, for initance, 
you may divide into five or fix. The Unity of the Writing 
will be the fame: The Life and Spirit full as well preferv’d. 
°T is not only whole Letters or Pages you may change and man- 
age thus at pleafure: Every Period, every Sentence almolt, is 
independent: and may be taken afunder, transpos’d, poftpon’d, 
anticipated, or fet in any new Order, as you fancy. 

Tus is the Manner of Writing, fo much admir’d and imi- 
tated in our Age, that we have ficarce the Idea of any other 
Model. We know little, indeed, of the Difference between one 
Model or Character of Writing and another. All runs to the 
fame Tune, and beats exactly one and the fame Measure. 
Nothing, one wou’d think, cou’d be more tedious than this uni- 
form Pace. The common Amble or Canterbury is not, I am 
perfuaded, more tirefom to a good Rider, than this SEE-saw 
of Essay-Writers is to an able Reader. The juft compofer of 
a legitimate Piece is like an able Traveller, who exactly meaf- 
ures his Journey, confiders his Ground, premeditates his Stages, 
and Intervals of Relaxation and Intention, to the very Conclu- 
fion of his Undertaking, that he happily arrives where he firit 
propol’d when he fet out. He is not prefently upon the Spur, 
or in his full Career; but walks his Steed leifurely out of his 
Stable, fettles himself in his Stirrups, and when fair Road and 
Seafon offer, puts on perhaps to a round Trot; thence into a 
Gallop, and after a while takes up. As Down, or Meadow, or 
fhady Lane prefent themfelves, he accordingly futes his Pace, 
favours his Palfry, and is fure not to bring him puffing, and 
in a heat, into his laft Inn. But the Poft-way is become highly 
fafhionable with modern Authors. The very same Strokes 
fets you out, and brings you in. Nothing ftays, or interrupts. 
Hill or Valley ; rough or fmooth; thick or thin: No Difference; 
no Variation. When an Author fits down to write, he knows 
no other Bufinefs he has, than to be witty, and take care that 
his Periods be well-turn’d, or (as they commonly fay) run 
fmooth. In the manner, he doubts not to gain the Character 
of bright. When he has writ as many Pages as he likes, or 


ILLUSTRATIONS 313 


as his Run of Fancy wou’d permit; he then perhaps confiders 
what Name he had beft give his new Writing: whether he 
fhou’d call it Letter, Effay, Mifcellany, or ought elfe. The 
Bookfeller perhaps is to determine this at laft, when all, befides 
the Preface, Epiftle Dedicatory, and Title-Page, is difpatch’d. 
Incertus Scamnum, faceretne Priapum. 
Deus inde Ego! 
Horat. Sat. 8. Lib. 1 


oo 
On Luxury 


By 
Viscount ST. JOHN BOLINGBROKE 


A discourse on Operas, and the gayer pleasures of the 
town, may seem to be too trifling for the important scene 
of affairs in which we are at present engaged; but I must 
own my fears, that they will bear too great a part in the suc- 
cess of a war, to make the consideration of them foreign to 
it. A very little reflection on history will suggest this observa- 
tion, that every nation has made either a great or inconsiderable 
figure in the world, as it has fallen into luxury or resisted its 
temptations. What people are more distinguished than the 
Persians under Cyrus, nursed up in virtue, and inured to labor 
and toil? Yet—in the short space of two hundred and twenty 
years ‘—they became so contemptible under Darius, as scarce 
to give honor to the conqueror’s sword. The Spartans, and the 
long-rulers of the world, the Romans, speak the same language; 
and I wish future history may not furnish more modern ex- 
amples. 

When the mind is enervated by luxury, the body soon falls 
an easy victim to it; for how is it possible to imagine, that a 
man can be capable of the great and generous sentiments which 
virtue inspires, whose mind is filled with the soft ideas, and 
wanton delicacies that pleasure must infuse? And were it 
possible to be warmed with such notions, could it ever put them 
in execution? For toils and fatigues would be difficulties un- 
surmountable to a soul dissolved in ease. Nor are these imagi- 
nary, speculative ideas of a closet; but such as have been 
the guide and policies of the wisest states. Of this we have 
the most remarkable instance in Herodotus. “The Persians, 


1 Liv., lib. 9, cap. 19. 
314 


ILLUSTRATIONS 315 


after their great and extended conquests, desired Cyrus to give 
them leave to remove out of their own barren and mountainous 
country into one more blest by the indulgence of Providence. 
But that great and wise prince, revolving the effect in his mind, 
bid them do as they would; telling them at the same time, that 
for the future they must not expect to command, but obey; 
for Providence had so ordered it, that an effeminate race of 
people were the certain produce of a delicious country.” What 
regard the great historian had to this opinion may be easily col- 
lected from his reserving it for the conclusion of this excellent 
piece. And the case is directly the same, whether pleasures 
are the natural product of a country, or adventitious exotics. 
They will have the same effect, and cause the same extended 
ruin. How often have they revenged the captive’s cause and 
made the conqueror’s sword the instrument of his own un- 
doing? Capua destroyed the bravest army which Italy ever 
saw, flushed with conquest, and commanded by Hannibal. The 
moment Capua was taken, that moment the walls of Carthage 
trembled. What was it that destroyed the republic of Athens, 
but the conduct of Pericles;? who by his pernicious policies 
first debauched the people’s minds with shows and festivals, 
and all the studied arts of ease and luxury; that he might, in 
the meantime, securely guide the reins of empire, and riot in 
dominion? He first laid the foundation of Philip’s power; nor 
had a man of Macedon ever thought of enslaving Greece, if 
Pericles had not first made them slaves to pleasure. That great 
statesman Tiberius * clearly saw what was the surest instrument 
of arbitrary power; and therefore refused to have luxury re- 
dressed, when application was made to him in the senate for 
that purpose. Artful princes have frequently introduced it 
with that very view. Davilla tells us, that in an interview and 
semblance of treaty with the king of Navar, Catherine of 
Medicis broke the prince’s power more with the insidious 
gaieties of her court, than many battles before had gone. But 
there is a single passage in Herodotus,* which will supply the 
place of more quotations. “When Cyrus had received an ac- 
count that the Lydians had revolted from him, he told Creesus, 


2 Plut. in Peric., and Demost. Orat. 
® Tac. An., lib. 2, cap. 33. 
4 Herod., lib. 1. cap. 155. 


316 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


with a good deal of emotion, that he had almost determined 
to make them all slaves. Croesus begged him to pardon them; 
but, says he, that they may no more rebel, or be troublesome to 
you, command them to lay aside their arms, to wear long vests 
and buskins. Order them to sing and play on the harp; to 
drink and debauch; and you will soon see their spirits broken, 
and themselves changed from men into women; so that they 
will no more rebel, or be uneasy to you for the future.” And 
the event answered the advice. They are puny politicians, 
who attack a people’s liberty directly. The means are dan- 
gerous, and the success precarious. Notions of liberty are in- 
terwoven with our very being; and the least suspicion of its 
being in danger fires the soul with a generous indignation. But 
he is the statesman formed for ruin and destruction, whose 
wily head knows how to disguise the fatal hook with baits of 
pleasure, which his artful ambition dispenses with a lavish 
hand, and makes himself popular in undoing. Thus are the 
easy, thoughtless crowd made the instruments of their own 
slavery ; nor do they know the fatal mine is laid till they feel 
the goodly pile come tumbling on their heads. This is the 
finished politician ; the darling son of Tacitus and Machiavel. 
But, thanks to Providence, the sacred monuments of history 
extend the short contracted span of human life, and give us 
years in books. These point out the glorious landmarks for 
our safety ; and bid us be wise in time, before luxury has made 
too great a progress among us. Operas and masquerades, 
with all the politer elegancies of a wanton age, are much less 
to be regarded for their expense, great as it is, than for the 
tendency which they have to deprave our manners. Music has 
something so peculiar in it, that it exerts a willing tyranny over 
the mind and forms the ductile soul into whatever shape the 
melody directs. Wise nations have observed its influence, and 
have therefore kept it under proper regulations. The Spar- 
tans,° vigilantly provident for the people’s safety, took from 
the famed Timotheus’s harp the additional strings, as giving 
music a degree of softness inconsistent with their discipline. 
The divine Plato is expressly of opinion, that the music of a 
country cannot be changed, and the public laws remain un- 
5 Cicero, lib. 2, de leg. cap. 39. . 


ILLUSTRATIONS 317 


affected. Heroes will be heroes, even in their music. Soft 
and wanton are the warbled songs of Paris;® but Achilles” 
sings the godlike deeds of heroes. A noble, manly music will 
place virtue in its most beautiful light, and be the most engaging 
incentive to it. A well-wrought story, attended with its pre- 
vailing charms, will transport the soul out of itself; fire it with 
glorious emulation; and lift the man into a hero; but the soft 
Italian music relaxes and unnerves the soul, and sinks it into 
weakness; so that while we receive their music, we at the same 
time are adopting their manners. The effects of it will appear 
in the strongest light from the fate of the people of Sybaris; 
a town in Italy, strong and wealthy ; blessed with all the goods 
of fortune, and skilled in all the arts of luxury and ease; which 
they carried to so great an excess, that their very horses were 
taught to move and form themselves as the music directed. 
Their constant enemies, the people of Crotona, observing this, 
brought a great number of harps and pipes into the field, and 
when the battle began, the music played; upon which these 
well-bred horses immediately began to dance; which so discon- 
certed the whole army, that 300,000 were killed, and the whole 
people destroyed. Though this story seems a little fabulous, 
yet it contains at least a very good moral. What effect Italian 
music might have on our polite warriors at Gibraltar, I cannot 
take upon me to say; but I wish our luxury at home may not 
influence our courage abroad. 
Gitorer tine T,) Ods 1S. 
. Grataque foemints, 


‘ Imbelli cithara, carmina divides. 
7 Hom, Iliad. 9, 189. 


1Gei 
Constantinople 


By 
EDMONDO pI AMICIS 
I. THE ARRIVAL 


The emotion that I experienced on entering Constantinople 
made me almost forget all that I had seen in the ten days’ 
voyage from the Straits of Messina to the mouth of the 
Bosphorus. The Ionian Sea, blue and motionless as a lake, 
the distant mountains of the Morea rose-tinted by the first 
rays of the sun, the Archipelago gilded from the sunset, the 
ruins of Athens, the Gulf of Salonica, Lemnos, Tenedos, the 
Dardanelles, and many persons and things that had diverted 
me during the voyage, all faded so fully from my fancy, after 
seeing the Golden Horn, that, should I now wish to describe 
them, I must work more from imagination than from memory. 

In order that my first page may issue warm and living from 
my mind, it must begin on the last night of my voyage, in the 
middle of the Sea of Marmora, at the moment when the cap- 
tain of the ship came up to me and my friend Yunk, and, 
putting his hands on my shoulders, said, “Gentlemen, at day- 
break to-morrow morning, we shall see the first minarets of 
Stamboul.” 

Ah, you smile, my good reader, full of money and ennui; 
you who, years back, when the whim seized you of making 
a trip to Constantinople, packed your valise, replenished your 
purse, and within four and twenty hours set out quietly as on 
a short visit to the country, undecided up to the last moment 
whether it were not better to take the route to Baden-Baden! 
If the captain of the ship had said the same to you, “To- 
morrow at daybreak we shall see Stamboul,” you would have 
answered him phlegmatically, “That is agreeable to me.” But 

318 


ILLUSTRATIONS $19 


if you had nursed the wish for ten years, had spent many 
winter evenings poring over maps of the East in a melancholy 
mood, had inflamed your imagination with the reading of a 
hundred volumes, had wandered over half of Europe with the 
sole purpose of consoling yourself for not being able to visit 
the other half, had been nailed down for a year to a desk 
to compass just this design, had made a thousand little sacri- 
fices, computed the expense again and again, built castles upon 
castles in the air, and fought many little domestic battles over 
it; had you in fine passed nine sleepless nights upon the sea, 
with that immense and luminous image before your eyes, so 
happy as to be conscious of remorse at thought of loved ones 
left at home; then you might have comprehended what these 
words mean, “To-morrow at daybreak, we shall see the first 
minarets of Stamboul”; and, instead of answering phlegmati- 
cally, “That is agreeable to me,” you would have struck a 
heavy blow, with your fist, on the bulwarks of the ship, as 
I did. 

One great pleasure for me and my friend was the profound 
conviction that our vast expectations could not be delusive. 
About Constantinople there was no doubt at all. Even the 
most distrusting traveler is sure about his facts; no one has 
ever experienced disillusionment concerning it. Nor is any 
fascination of grand memories or the habit of admiration in- 
volved in it. It is one universal and sovereign beauty, before 
which poet and archeologist, ambassador and merchant, the 
princess and the sailor, the son of the North as well as the son 
of the South, all cry out alike with wonder. It is the most 
beautiful spot on earth by the judgment of all the world. 
Writers of travels, arriving there, lose straightway their heads. 
Perthusier stammers, Tournefort declares that human speech 
is impotent, Toqueville thinks himself transported to another 
world, La Croix is intoxicated, the Viscount de Marcellus be- 
comes ecstatic, Lamartine gives thanks to God, Gautier doubts 
the reality of what he sees; and all heap image upon image, 
affect scintillations of style, and torture themselves in vain 
to find expressions that shall not fall miserably below the mean- 
ing to be told. Chateaubriand alone describes his entrance into 
Constantinople with an air of tranquillity that amounts to 


320 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


stupor. But he does not refrain from saying that it is the most 
beautiful spectacle in the universe. And if the famous Lady 
Mary Wortley Montague, proclaiming the same judgment, pref- 
aces it with a ‘“‘perhaps,’’ we must suppose it done to reserve 
the first place to her own beauty, by which she set much store. 

There is, however, an unimpressionable German who says 
that the most charming illusions of youth and even the dreams 
of first love are pale imaginings in comparison with that sense 
of sweetness which pervades the soul at the sight of these 
enchanting places; and a learned Frenchman affirms that the 
first impression that Constantinople makes is one of terror. 
Let him who reads imagine the excitement which these words 
of flame, a hundred times repeated, were bound to arouse in 
the brain of a clever painter of four and twenty, and of a 
sorry poet of twenty-eight. But by no means did this famous 
praise of Constantinople satisfy us, and we sought the testi- 
mony of the sailors. And also they, poor rugged folk, to ex- 
press an idea of such beauty, felt the need of some simile or 
word of power, and they strove for it turning their eyes this 
way and that, and rubbing their hands, and made attempts 
at description which such sounds of voice as seem to come from 
far, and with those large groping gestures with which people 
of this sort express wonder when words do not suffice. “To 
come of a fine morning into Constantinople,’ said the head 
steersman, “believe me, gentlemen, is a splendid moment in the 
life of a man.” 

The weather also smiled on us. It was a warm calm night. 
The sea caressed the sides of the vessel with a gentle mur- 
muring. ‘The masts and small cordage showed, in relief, dis- 
tinct and moveless against a sky studded with stars. The ship 
did not appear in the least to move. At the prow lay a group 
of Turks, smoking their narghiles, with their faces turned 
towards the moon, which seemed to set their turbans in a rim 
of silver. At the stern was a crowd of people from every 
country, and among them a famished-looking company of 
Greek comedians who had embarked at the Pirzeus. I see 
still, in the midst of a brood of Russian babies on the way 
to Odessa with their mother, the charming face of the little 
Olga, all astonishment that I could not understand her lan- 


ILLUSTRATIONS 321 


guage, and provoked at having asked me three times the same 
question without receiving an intelligible reply. I have on one 
side a fat and dirty Greek priest, with hat like an inverted 
basket, who is searching with a glass for the Archipelago of 
Marmora. On the other side is an evangelical English minister, 
rigid and frigid as a statue, who for three days has not uttered 
a word or looked a living creature in the face. Before me are 
two handsome Athenian sisters in red caps with hair falling 
in tresses over their shoulders, who, the moment one looks at 
them, turn both together towards the sea in order to be seen 
in profile. A little further on, an Armenian merchant is passing 
the beads of his oriental rosary through his fingers, there is a 
group of Jews in antique garb, there are Albanians with white 
petticoats, there is a French governess who affects an air of 
melancholy, and there are a few travelers, of the ordinary class, 
who show no sign by which it can be known from what coun- 
try they come or what their business is. In the midst of these 
folk is a little Turkish family, made up of a papa in fez, a 
mamma veiled, and two babies in full pantaloons, all crouched 
on a heap of mattresses and many-colored cushions under an 
awning, and surrounded by various belongings of every form 
and color. 

How a close approach to Constantinople makes itself felt! 
There was at once an unusual activity. Almost all the faces 
that could be seen in the light of the ship’s lantern were happy 
and animated. The Russian children leaped about their mother, 
calling out the ancient Russian name of Stamboul,—‘‘Zave- 
gorod! Zavegorod!” Here and there among the groups one 
hears the names of Galata, of Pera, of Scutari, of Bujukdere, 
of Terapia, and they shone in my fancy like the first glitter of 
fireworks about to burst into a fleece of flame. Even the sailors 
were happy to approach a place where, as they said, all the ills 
of life for an hour at least could be forgotten. Meanwhile at 
the prow, extraordinary activity was noticed in the midst of 
that heap of turbans; even the lazy and impassive Mussulmans 
beheld now with the eye of imagination the fantastic outline 
of Ummelunia, the mother of the world, undulating on the 
horizon; of that city as the Quardn says, of which “one side 
looks upon the land and two sides look upon the sea.” It 


822 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


seemed that the ship, even without the motive force of steam, 
must go forward of itself, thrust forward by the impetus of 
impatience and longing which chafed along its decks. From 
time to time I leaned on the railing to look out upon the sea, 
and it seemed that a hundred confused voices spoke to me in 
the murmur of the waters. They were the voices of all who 
loved me, and who said, “On, on, son, brother, friend; go on, 
rejoice yourself in your Constantinople. You have earned the 
right, be happy, and God be with you.” 

Not until nearly midnight did the travelers begin to go be- 
low. My friend and I were the last to descend, and we went 
at a snail’s pace. It was repugnant to us to shut up within 
four walls a joy for which all the circuit of the Propontis 
seemed straitened. When we were halfway down the stair, 
we heard the voice of the captain inviting us to come up, in 
the morning, upon the bridge. “Be up before sunrise,” he 
called, showing himself at the companionway. “I will have | 
the one who hangs back pitched into the sea.” 

A more superfluous threat was never made since the world 
began. I did not close an eye. I believe that the youthful 
Mahomet the Second, agitated on that famous night of Adria- 
nople by his vision of the city of Constantine, did not tumble 
his couch with so many restless movements as I made in my 
berth, during those four hours of expectation. To control 
my nerves, I tried counting up to a thousand, keeping my eyes 
fixed on the white wreaths of foam which were constantly 
rising about the porthole of my stateroom. I hummed airs 
to the rhythmical exhaust of the ship’s engine. But all was 
useless. I was feverish, my breath at times failed me, the 
night seemed endless. At the first streak of dawn I leapt down. 
Yunk was already on his feet. We dressed ourselves in mad 
haste, and in three bounds were upon the deck. 

Beshrew our fate! 

Fog! 

A thick fog covered the horizon on every side. Rain seemed 
certain. The grand spectacle of our entry into Constantinople 
was spoiled, our most ardent hope, deluded, our voyage, in a 
word, wasted. 

I was overwhelmed. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 823 


At that moment the captain appeared, with his accustomed 
smile. 

There was no need of speech. As soon as he saw, he under- 
stood, and clapping his hand upon my shoulder, said, in tones 
of consolation: 

“Nothing, nothing at all. Do not lose heart, gentlemen. 
Rather, bless this fog. Thanks to it, we shall make the finest 
entry that you could have wished. Within two hours we shall 
have a marvelously clear sky. You can rely on what I say.” 

I felt my life come back. 

We went up on the officers’ deck. At the prow, all the 
Turks were sitting cross-legged on their rugs, with their faces 
turned towards Constantinople. In a few minutes, all the 
other passengers came up, armed with glasses of every form, 
and posted themselves in a long line against the left-hand 
railing, as in the gallery of a theater. A fresh breeze was blow- 
ing. Noone spoke. All eyes and all the glasses were little by 
little turned towards the northern shore of the Sea of Mar- 
mora. But as yet there was nothing to be seen. 

The fog was now reduced to a whitish band along the hori- 
zon, above which the sky showed clear and golden. 

Directly in front of us, and in line of the ship’s course, con- 
fusedly appeared the little archipelago of the Nine Islands of 
the Princes, the Demonesi of the ancients, a pleasure resort in 
the time of the Lower Empire, and now serving the inhabitants 
of Constantinople as a place for gatherings and outings. 

The two shores of the Sea of Marmora were still completely 
hidden. 

Only after we had waited an hour upon the bridge did we 
begin to see. 

But it is impossible to understand any account of the entry 
to Constantinople unless we have clearly in our minds the 
configuration of the city. Let the reader suppose that he 
has before him the mouth of the Bosphorus, that arm of the 
sea which divides Asia from Europe and joins the Sea of Mar- 
mora with the Black Sea. Standing in this position, he has on 
his right hand the Asiatic coast, and the European shore upon 
his left. Here is ancient Thrace, there the ancient Anatolia. 
Advancing now, threading this arm of the sea, he finds on 


824 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


his left hand, before the mouth is fairly past, a gulf, a very 
narrow roadstead, which forms almost a right angle with the 
Bosphorus and penetrates for several miles into European ter- 
ritory, and curved like the horn of an ox. From this is derived 
its name of the Golden Horn, or horn of plenty, since to it 
flowed, when it was the port of Byzantium, the riches of three 
continents. 

In the angle of the European shore,—which is on one side 
bathed by the Sea of Marmora, and on the other by the Golden 
Horn, where stood the ancient Byzantium,—trises upon seven 
hills Stamboul, the Turkish city. In the other angle, bathed 
by the waters of the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, stand 
Galata and Pera, the Frankish cities. Facing the mouth of 
the Golden Horn, on the hills of the Asiatic side, rises. the city 
of Scutari. Thus what is called Constantinople is formed of 
three great cities divided by the sea, one opposite to another, 
and the third fronting the other two, and so near, each to each, 
that the buildings at either of the three shores can be seen 
distinctly from the other two, and at as little distance as one 
side of the Seine or the Thames from the other at widest 
points in Paris or London. The point of the triangle on which 
Stamboul rises, bending towards the Golden Horn, is the fa- 
mous Point Seraglio, which till the last moment hides from 
the eyes of those approaching from the Sea of Marmora, the 
view of the two shores of the Horn, or the largest and most 
beautiful part of Constantinople. 

It was the captain who, with his seaman’s eye, was the first 
to catch the first glimpse of Stamboul. 

The two Athenian ladies, the Russian family, the English 
minister, Yunk, and I, and all the others who, with us, were 
coming to Constantinople for the first time, were standing about 
the Captain in a close group, silent, and straining our eyes in 
vain against the fog, when he, stretching his arm to the left 
pouieds the European shore, called out, “Signori, behold the 
first gleam!” 

It was a white point, the top of a very high minaret, the 
lower part of which was still concealed. Every glass was at 
once leveled at it, every eye was fixed on that small opening 
in the fog as if to make it larger. The ship was rapidly ad- 


x 
a ee ee.) 


ILLUSTRATIONS 325 


vancing. After some minutes, appeared near the minaret a 
vague spot, then two, then three, then many spots which 
little by little took the shape of houses, and began to extend 
themselves in a lengthening row. Before us and on our right 
everything was still veiled in fog. What we saw gradually 
opening was the part of Stamboul which stretched out in the 
form of a curve for about four Italian miles, on the north shore 
of the Sea of Marmora, between Point Seraglio and the castle 
of the Seven Towers. But the hill of the Seraglio was still 
hidden. Behind the houses emerged one after another the 
minarets, very tall and white, and their summits, touched by 
the rays of the sun, were of rose color. Under the houses be- 
gan to appear the ancient battlemented walls, of dusky color, 
reinforced at equal distances by large towers, which form 
around the city an unbroken girdle, and against which break 
the waves of the sea. After a short interval, a tract of about 
two miles in the length of the city was in sight; but, to say the 
truth, the spectacle did not answer to my expectations. We 
were off the point where Lamartine had asked himself, “Is this 
Constantinople?” and cried out, “What a delusion!” The hills 
were still hidden, nothing was in sight but the shore, the houses 
formed a more elongated thread, the city seemed all on a level. 
“Captain,” I too exclaimed, “is this Constantinople?’ The 
Captain took me by the arm, and said, pointing forward with 
his hand, “Oh, man of little faith, look there!’ 

I looked and uttered an exclamation of amazement. An 
enormous shade, a massive building of great lightness as well 
as height, still shrouded in a veil of vapor, rose to the heaven 
from the summit of a hill, and rounded gloriously into the air, 
in the midst of four slender and lofty minarets, whose silvery 
points glittered in the first rays of the sun. “Santa Sophia,” 
shouted a sailor; and one of the two Athenian ladies murmured, 
“Hagia Sophia!” [Holy Wisdom!]. The Turks at the prow 
rose to their feet. But already before and around the great 
basilica, other enormous domes and minarets, thick and com- 
mingled like a forest of gigantic palm trees without branches, 
showed in outline against the fog. “The mosque of Sultan 
Ahmed,” called the Captain, pointing; “the mosque of Bajazet, 
the mosque of Osman, the mosque of Laleli, the mosque of 


326 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


Soliman.” But no one heeded him any more. The fog lifted 
rapidly, and on every side leaped forth mosques, towers, masses 
of verdure, houses upon houses; and as we advanced, higher 
rose the city, and more distinctly displayed her grand, broken, 
capricious outlines, white, green, rosy, glittering; and the Hill 
of the Seraglio showed clear and entire its gentle form against 
the gray background of mist. Four miles of city, all that 
part of Stamboul which looks out upon the Sea of Marmora, 
lay extended before us, and her dark walls, and her houses of 
a thousand colors were reflected in the clear and shining water 
as in a mirror. 

On a sudden the ship came to a full stop. 

All the passengers crowded about the Captain and inquired 
the reason. He explained to us that, to advance now, it was 
necessary to wait till the fog had opened. It was in fact still 
hiding the mouth of the Bosphorus as with a thick curtain. But 
after less than a minute, it was possible to advance again, but 
with the utmost caution. 

We were approaching the Hill of the Old Seraglio. 

Here the curiosity of the company became feverish. 

“Turn your head that way,’ said the Captain to me, “till 
we are opposite the whole.” 

I turned away and kept my eyes fixed upon a deck chair, 
which seemed to me to be dancing about. 

“Now look!” said the Captain, after perhaps a minute. 

I turned. The ship had stopped again. 

We were directly in front of the hill, very close to the shore. 

It is a rather high hill, all clothed with cypresses, pines, firs, 
and great plane trees, which project their branches beyond the 
walls, so far as to throw shadows upon the water. In the 
midst of this mass of verdure, rise in disorder, separated and 
in groups, as if scattered at random, tops of kiosks, little pa- 
vilions crowned with galleries, silvery cupolas, little buildings 
of rare and graceful forms, with grated windows and arabesque 
portals; all white, delicate, half hidden, leaving fancy to divine 
a labyrinth of gardens, corridors, courts, recesses; a whole 
city shut up in a grove; separated from the world, full of 
mystery and sadness. At that moment the sun came out 
upon it, though it was covered still with a veil of thinnest 


ILLUSTRATIONS 327 


mist. No living creature was in sight, there was to be heard 
no slightest sound. All the passengers stood with their eyes 
fixed on that hill crowned with the memories of four cen- 
turies of glory, of pleasure, of loves, of conspiracy, of blood; 
court, citadel, and tomb of the great Ottoman Empire. No 
one spoke, no one moved. Then, suddenly, the mate called out, 
“Signori, you can see Scutari!” 

We turned towards the Asiatic shore. There lay Scutari, 
scattered and stretching out of sight over the tops and sides of 
its lofty hills, veiled in the luminous morning mists, smiling, 
fresh as if called into being at the moment by the touch of a 
magic wand. Who can describe that spectacle? The language 
with which we describe our cities is not sufficient to give us an 
idea of that immense variety of colors and of views, of that 
marvelous confusion of city and country, of gay and of au- 
stere, of European, of Oriental, of fanciful, select, and grand. 
Imagine a city composed of ten thousand little purple and yel- 
low houses, and of ten thousand gardens of luxuriant green, of 
a hundred mosques as white as snow; beyond, a forest of 
enormous cypresses, the largest cemetery in the East; at the 
end, boundless white barracks, villages grouped upon heights, 
behind which emerge other villages half hidden in verdure; 
and over all, tops of minarets and points of white domes rising 
halfway up the spine of a mountain which cuts off the horizon 
like a curtain, a great city spread over an immense garden, over 
a shore broken by ravines and precipices, clothed with syca- 
mores, and there descending into verdant plains with open spots 
full of flowers and shade; and the azure mirror of the Bos- 
phorus reflecting all their various beauty. 

While I stood gazing at Scutari, my friend touched me with 
his elbow to signify his discovery of another city. And I 
saw in fact, turning towards the Sea of Marmora, beyond Scu- 
tari on the same Asiatic shore, a long line of houses, of mosques, 
and of gardens, before which the ship had passed and which 
till now had been hidden by the fog. With the glass we could 
see most distinctly the cafés, bazaars, the European houses, the 
outer stairs, the walls surrounding gardens, and little boats 
scattered along the shore. It was Kadi-Kioi, “the village of 
the judges,” built on the ruins of ancient Chalcedon, once the 


328 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


rival of Byzantium,—the Chalcedon that was founded six hun- 
dred and eighty-five years before Christ by the Megarians to 
whom the oracle at Delphi gave the name of “blind” for having 
made choice of that site instead of the shore opposite where 
Stamboul stands. “And three cities,” the Captain told us,— 
“count them on your fingers, for in a few moments other ones 
will leap forth to view.” 

The ship was still halted between Scutari and the Hill of the 
Seraglio. The fog in fact hid the Bosphorus from Scutari at 
that point, and all Galata and all Pera which we fronted. Sail- 
ing ships passed near us, steamers, caiques, and sailboats, but 
no one gave them a glance. All eyes were fixed on the gray 
curtain which shut out the Frankish city. I was in a rage of 
impatience and delight. A few minutes more, and the mar- 
velous spectacle, which would call forth an outcry from the 
soul. I was scarcely able to keep the glass at my eyes, so 
greatly did my hand tremble. The Captain watched me, help- 
less man, and appreciated my emotion and, rubbing his hands, 
exclaimed: 

“Yes, here we are. Here we are.” 

At last white spots began to appear behind the veil, then a 
vague outline of great height, then a scattered and vivid flash 
of window panes smitten by the sun, and finally Galata and 
Pera in full light, a mountain of many-colored houses, one 
above the other ; a lofty city crowned with minarets, with cupo- 
las, with cypresses; on the summit the monumental palaces of 
the different embassies, and the great Tower of Galata; at its 
foot the vast arsenal of Tophane and a forest of masts; and 
as the fog diminished, the city lengthened rapidly along the 
Bosphorus, and quarter after quarter came out, stretching from 
the tops of the hills to the edge of the sea, vast, thickly set with 
houses, marked white here and there by mosques; rows of 
ships, little gateways, palaces rising from the water, pavilions, 
gardens, kiosks, groves; and confused in the distant fog, other 
quarters showing only their highest points gilded by the sun; 
a glow of colors, an exuberance of verdure, a range of vistas, 
a grandeur, a delight, a grace to elicit the wildest exclamations. 
Every one upon the ship stood with lips apart, passengers, sail- 
ors, Turks, Europeans, children. No one uttered a sound. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 329 


No one knew which way to look. We had on one side Scutari 
and Kadi-Kioi; on the other the Hill of the Seraglio; in front, 
Galata, Pera, the Bosphorus. To see everything, it was neces- 
sary to turn round upon one’s self as on a pivot; and we turned 
about, throwing on every side our excited glances, laughing 
and gesticulating without speech, with a joy that suffocated 
us. Heavens! what glorious moments! 

Nevertheless the grandest and most beautiful sight of all 
remained to be seen. We were still motionless outside Point 
Seraglio, which we must pass before in order to see the Golden 
Horn, and the most wonderful view of Constantinople is on 
the Golden Horn. ‘‘Gentlemen, attention,” called out the Cap- 
tain, before giving the order to advance. “‘Now comes the 
critical moment. In three minutes we shall face Constanti- 
nople !” 

A shiver of excitement passed over me. 

We waited yet a moment and another. 

Oh! how my heart thumped! With what feverish impatience 
I waited for the blessed word, “Forward!” 

“Forward,” cried the Captain. 

The ship began to move. 

Weare off at last! Kings, princes, Croesuses, potentates, and 
ye fortunate of the earth, at that moment I pitied you; my 
post upon the deck of our ship was worth all your treasuries, 
and I would not have sold one look for an empire. 

One minute—a second minute—Seraglio Point is before us 
—we catch a glimpse of an enormous space full of light and 
an immensity of objects and of colors—the point is passed— 
behold Constantinople! Matchless Constantinople, superb, 
sublime! Glory of creation and of man! I had not dreamed 
of such beauty! 

And now would you describe, vain wretch, profane with 
words of yours this divine vision? Who dares to describe Con- 
stantinople? Chateaubriand, Lamartine, Gautier, what have 
you stammered? Still images and words crowd to my mind 
and flee from my pen. I see, I speak, I write, all at once, with- 
out hope, but with a passion which intoxicates me. Then let 
us see. The Golden Horn directly before us like a great river ; 
and on either shore, two chains of heights on which rise and 


330 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


extend two parallel chains of city, which embrace eight miles 
of hills, valleys, bays, and promontories; a hundred amphi- 
theatres of monuments and gardens; an immense border of 
houses, of mosques, of bazaars, of seraglios, of baths, of kiosks, 
distinguished by an endless variety of colors; in the midst of 
these, thousands of minarets, with shining points, rise to the 
sky like innumerable points of ivory; and groves of cypresses 
emerge and descend in dark lines from the heights to the sea, 
engarlanding suburbs and ports; and vigorous vegetation rising 
and overflowing everywhere, fringing the summits, encircling 
the roofs, and hanging over the water’s edge. On the right, 
Galata fronted by a forest of masts and flags; above Galata, 
Pera with the mighty outlines of her European palaces in re- 
lief upon the sky; in front, a bridge which connects the two 
shores, and crowded by two opposing throngs of many colored 
folk; on the left, Stamboul, stretched over her broad hills, 
each crowned by a gigantic mosque with leaden dome and pin- 
nacles of gold; Santa Sophia, white and rose-colored; Sultan 
Ahmed, flanked by six minarets; Soliman the Great crowned 
with ten domes; Sultana Validé mirrored in the waters; on 
the fourth hill, the mosque of Mahomet JI; on the fifth, the 
mosque of Selim; on the sixth, the Seraglio of Tekyr; and 
above the summits of all, the white tower of the Seraschiere 
which overlooks the shores of the two continents from the 
Dardanelles to the Black Sea. Beyond the sixth hill of Stam- 
boul and beyond Galata nothing but vague profiles can be seen, 
points of cities or of suburbs, ends of ports, of fleets and of 
groves, as it were vanishing into azure air, seeming realities 
no longer, but false visions of atmosphere and light. How am 
I to grasp the various parts of this prodigious picture? The 
glance is fixed, one moment, on the nearer shore, upon a Turk- 
ish cottage or gilded minaret; but suddenly it darts back at 
random into that luminous and spacious depth between those 
fleeing lines of fantastic cities, hardly followed by the be- 
wildered mind. An infinitely serene majesty is diffused over 
all this loveliness; a something of youthfulness and passion, 
which wakens a thousand memories of fairy tales and dreams 
of springtide, a something airy and mysterious and grand, 
which carries the fancy beyond things of reality. The misty 


ILLUSTRATIONS 331 


sky, filled with finest tints of opaline and silver, forms a back- 
ground on which everything is shown with marvelous clearness 
and delicacy; the sea, sapphire-colored and dotted everywhere 
with crimson buoys, gives back the minarets in trembling re- 
flections, long and white; the domes glitter; all the immensity 
of vegetation waves and quivers in the morning air; clouds of 
doves hover about the mosques; thousands of painted and 
gilded caiques dart about the waters; a breeze from the Black 
Sea brings perfumes from ten miles of gardens; and when 
drunk with the glories of this paradise, and oblivious of all 
things else, you turn away, you see behind you, with a new 
sentiment of wonder, the shores of Asia shutting up the pano- 
rama with the pompous splendor of Scutari and the snowy 
summits of Olympus; the Sea of Marmora sprinkled with little 
islands and whitened with sails; and the Bosphorus covered 
with ships, winding between two interminable lines of kiosks, 
of palaces, and of villas, and losing itself mysteriously among 
the most smiling hills of all the East. Ah yes! This is the 
most beautiful spectacle on earth. He who denies it is un- 
grateful to God and does despite to his creation. A mightier 
beauty would overpower the senses of mankind. 

The first emotion past, I watched my fellow travelers. The 
faces of all were changed. The two Athenian ladies had moist 
~ eyes; the Russian mother, in that solemn moment, was strain- 
ing the little Olga to her breast. Even the impassive English 
minister let us hear for the first time the sound of his voice, 
exclaiming from time to time “Wonderful! Wonderful!” 

The ship was moored not far from the bridge. In a few 
moments a crowd of boats had gathered about it, and on the 
deck burst a throng of Turkish, Greek, Armenian, and Jewish 
porters, who, cursing one another in outrageous Italian, pos- 
sessed themselves of our effects and of our persons. 

After a useless attempt at resistance, I bestowed an embrace 
upon the Captain, a kiss upon Olga, and an adieu on all, and 
descended with my friend into a four-oared caique, which con- 
veyed us to the custom house. From here we climbed through 
a labyrinth of narrow streets to the Hotel de Byzantium, on 
the top of the hill of Pera. 


IV 
The Magic of the Learned 


By 
Victor RYDBERG 


We find ourselves in a dismal labyrinth of narrow, winding 
streets, now and then issuing into some open space before a 
guild-hall or a church. The objects which meet our gaze in 
this strange city do not solicit pause or reflection; for we have 
seen essentially the same type of homes and humanity in many 
another city which we have wandered through in our search 
for the stone of wisdom. We therefore continue on our way. 
The buildings of the university are said to be in the neighbor- 
hood, and we turn the corner to the right, and again to the left, 
until we come upon it. The lecture-hour approaches. Profes- 
sors draped in stiff mantles and wearing the scholastic cap on 
their supremely wise foreheads, wend their way to the temples 
of knowledge at the portals of which flocks of students stand. 
We recognize their various and familiar types. The new- 
matriculated look as usual, their cheeks still retaining the glow 
of early youth, their hearts still humble, perhaps still held 
captive by the sweet delusion that the walls by which they wait 
are the propyleea to all the secrets of earth and heaven. Just 
as readily recognized are the parchment-worms, destined one 
day to shine as lights in the Church and in the domain of 
science, whether they now toil themselves pale and melancholic 
over their catena, their summa and sententia, or bear with un- 
feigned self-satisfaction the precious weight of terms which 
lifts them so conspicuously above the ignorant mass of mortals. 
Among the throng of the first-named still fresh with youth, 
and these already dried pedants, we find also the far-famed 


third class of students, adventurers assembled from all quar- 
332 


ILLUSTRATIONS $33 


ters under the protection of university privileges,—those gen- 
tlemen with bearded cheek, and faces swelled by drinking and 
scarred by combat, with terribly long and broad swords 
dangling at their side—the heroes of that never-ending Iliad 
which the apprentices of learning and the guilds enact nightly 
in the darkness of the lanes, who may yet turn out some day 
the most pious of conventical priors, the gravest doctors and 
the very severest burgomasters in Christendom, unless before 
that time they meet their fate upon the gallows, or on the 
field of battle, or as scholares vagantes in the ditch or by the 
roadside. 

Shall we enter and listen to some of these lectures which 
are about to be delivered? Our letter of academic member- 
ship will open the door to us, if we desire. To the left in the 
vaulted hall the professor of medicine has commenced his lec- 
ture. With astonishing subtlety and penetration he discusses 
the highly important question, before propounded by Petrus 
de Abano, but not as yet fully solved,—‘“an caput sit factum 
propter cerebrum vel oculos” (whether the head was formed 
for the sake of the brain or the eyes). To the right the pro- 
fessor of theology leads us into one of the dim mysteries of 
the Church by ventilating the question what Peter would have 
done with the bread and wine, had he distributed the elements 
while the body of Christ in unchanged reality was yet hang- 
ing on the cross.*_ A little farther on in this mouldy vault 
we find the workshop of philosophy, where a master in the art 
of abstract reasoning deduces the distinction between universa- 
lia ante rem and universalia in re. In yonder furthest room a 
jurisconsult expounds a passage in the pandects.—Or perhaps 
you would rather not choose at all? You smile sadly. Alas! 
like myself you have good reason for complaining with Faust: 


I have, alas! Philosophy, 

Med’cine, and Jurisprudence too, 
And to my cost Theology, 

With ardent labor studied through. 
And here I stand, with all my lore, 

Poor fool, no wiser than before. 


1 Yet in the days of Erasmus of Rotterdam the theologians were 
making great ado over this knotty problem. 


334 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 
And if you add like him, 


Hence have I now applied myself to magic, 


we shall bring back to our minds the object of our burning de- 
sires, the hope which cheers us that finally the veil will be 
torn from the face of the Isis-image, and that we shall behold 
the unspeakable face to face, even though her looks burn us 
to ashes. Let us turn back upon this tragi-comic seat of learn- 
ing, where, as everywhere else, hoary-headed fools are teach- 
ing young chicken-heads to admire nonsense, and young eagle- 
souls to despair of knowledge. It is not far hence direct—as 
direct as the winding lanes permit—to that great magician who 
has taken up his abode in this city. At the feet of that master 
let us seat ourselves. We shall there slake our burning thirst 
with at least a few drops of that knowledge which through 
by-gone ages has been flowing in a subterranean channel, 
though from the same sources as the streams of Paradise. And 
if we are disappointed there,—well then you, if you so choose, 
can quench your longing for truth in the whirlpool of pleasure 
and adventure. J shall go into a monastery, seek the narrowest 
of its cells, watch, pray, scourge forth my blood in streams; 
or I shall go to India, sit down upon the ground and stare 
at the tip of my nose,—stare at it and never cease, year out 
and year in, until all consciousness is extinguished. Agreed, 
then, is it not? 


We are arrived in the very loneliest quarter of the town, and 
the most dreary limits of the quarter, where old crumbling 
houses group themselves in inextricable confusion along the 
city wall, and from their gable windows fix their vacant, hypo- 
chondriacal looks upon the open fields beyond. A tower, 
crowning the wall of the fort upon this side, now serves the 
great scientist as an observatory and dwelling, given him by 
the burgomaster and the council of the city. He was fora 
long time private physician to the Queen of France, but has 
now retired to this lonely place from the pleasures, the distinc- 
tions, and the dangers of life at court, in order to devote him- 
self quietly to research and study. He has a protector in the 


ILLUSTRATIONS 1). $385 


prince-archbishop resident in the city; and as the professor 
of theology has certified at the request of this same prince- 
bishop to his strict orthodoxy, the city authorities thought to 
persuade him to receive the honorable and lucrative position of 
town-astrologer, not heeding the assertion of the monks that 
he was a wizard, and that his black spaniel was in reality none 
other than the devil himself. 

A magician never suffers himself to be interrupted in his 
labors, whether engaged in contemplating the nature of spirits, 
in watching the heavens, or in the elaboration of the quinta 
essentia, the final essence, with his crucibles. Oh! what world- 
wide hopes, what solemn emotions, what inexpressible tension 
of soul must accompany these investigations! Gold, which 
tules the world, here falls from the tree of knowledge as a 
fruit overripe into the bosom of the master. And what is 
gold with all the power it possesses, and all the enjoyment it 
commands, compared with the ability to control heaven and 
earth and the spirits of hell, compared with the capacity to 
summon by the means of lustrations, seals, characters and 
exorcisms the angels hovering in the higher spheres, or tame 
to obedience the demons which fill the immensity of space? 
And what again is this power compared with the pure celestial 
knowledge to which magic delivers the key,—a knowledge as 
much transcending the wisdom of angels as the son’s place 
in his father’s house is superior to a servant’s? Perchance 
the magician at this very moment is deeply absorbed in some 
investigation, and within a hair’s breadth of the revelation 
of some new and dazzling truth. Let us consider before we 
venture to ask admittance. Let us pause a moment before this 
iron-bound door, and recover our breath. 

We knocked upon the door ponderous with its bolts of iron. 
It opened as by an unseen hand. No servant interposed either 
welcome or remonstrance as we mounted the dark spiral stairs. 
Unannounced we entered the hall of the great magician. Along 
the arched ceiling of the rooms, whose green lead-fastened win- 
dow panes admitted but a scanty light, floated a fragrant vapor 
from the cell in the extreme background, where we could see 
the magician himself clad in a snow-white mantle reaching to 
his feet, and standing solemnly beside an incense-altar. Upon 


3886 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


his head he wore a diadem, on which was engraved the un- 
speakable name, Tetragrammaton, and in his hand he held a 
metallic plate which, as we soon learned, was made of electrum 
and signed with the signatures of coming centuries. 

We paused and stammered a word of excuse for the inter- 
ruption we had caused him. A smile of satisfaction broke upon 
his face when he had momentarily surveyed us, and he bade 
us welcome. 

“You are the very persons whose arrival I have been ex- 
pecting, and whom it has cost me much trouble to summon,” 
he said. ‘You are the spirits of the nineteenth century, con- 
jured to appear before a man of the fifteenth. You are called 
from the antechambers where the souls of the unborn await 

their entrance upon earth. But the images of the century to 
which your future mortal life belongs dwell in the depths of 
your consciousness. These images you shall show me. For 
this have I summoned you, to gain a glance into the future.” 

I was seized with a strange, almost horrid feeling. I now 
remembered that I and my companions had transported our- 
selves, by the use of means which stirs up the entire reproduc- 
tive forces of the imagination, from the actual nineteenth cen- 
tury, back to the long-past fifteenth, that we might see it live 
before our eyes, not in dissevered traits as a past age is wont 
to be preserved in books, but in the completeness of its own 
multiformity. Who was right, the magician or myself? Which 
was the one only seemingly living, he or 1? At what hour 
did the hand on the clock of time point at that moment? 
Granted that time is absolutely nothing but a conceptual form 
without independent reality ; as long as I live in time I believe 
in its ordered course, and do not wish to see its golden thread 
entangled. I did not wish that the spirit which I had sum- 
moned should be my master and degrade me to a product of 
his own imagination. I summoned courage and exclaimed: 

“We have wandered through many cities, great magician, to 
find you. We finally stand in this your sanctuary. We see 
these gloomy Gothic arches over our heads. We see your 
venerable figure before us. We behold these folios and strange 
instruments which surround you. We look out through these 
windows and behold on one side towers and housetops, on the 


ILLUSTRATIONS 837 


other fields, meadows and the huts of serfs, and yonder in the 
distance the castle of a knight who is suspected of night- 
attacks upon the trains of the merchants as they approach the 
city. All these things stand real and present before our eyes. 
But, nevertheless, great magician, it is all, yourself included, a 
product of our magic, of the power of our own imagination, 
not of your magic. It is in order to make some acquaintance 
with the latter that we are come. It is not we who are to 
answer your questions, but you ours.” 

The magician smiled. He persisted in his view, and I in 
mine. The contested question could not be decided, and it was 
laid aside. But along with my consciousness of belonging to 
a period of critical activity, my doubts had awakened—my 
vivid hope a moment ago of finding in magic the key of all 
secrets, was fast fading away. 

I looked around in this home of the magician. On his writ- 
ing-desk lay a parchment on which he had commenced to write 
down the horoscope of the following year. Beside the desk 
was a celestial globe with figures painted in various colors. In 
a window looking towards the south hung an astrolabe, to whose 
alidade a tong telescope (of course without lenses) was at- 
tached. The bookcase contained a not inconsiderable number 
of folios: Versio Vulgata, some volumes of the fathers, Virgil, 
Dionysius Areopagites, Ptolemy, the Hymns of Orpheus, 
Hermes Trismegistus, Jamblichus, Pliny’s Natural History, 
a large number of works partly in Arabic upon astrology and 
alchemy, also a few Hebrew manuscripts, and so on. These 
and other such things were to be found in his observatory, 
which was also his studio and sleeping-room. Next to the con- 
servatory was the alchemical laboratory with a strangely ap- 
pointed oven filled with singular instruments reminding me 
again of Faust’s complaint : 


Ihr Instrumente freilich spottet mein, 

Mit Rad und Kamen, Walz und Biugel. 

Ich stand am Thor, ihr solltet Schlussel sein; 

Zwar euer Bart ist kraus, doch hebt Ihr nicht der Riegel. 


While we lingered here our host informed us that for the 
present he had suspended his experiments in alchemy. He 


8388 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


hoped to find his quinta essentia by a shorter process than the © 
combination of substances and distillation, which had exhausted 
already so many investigators and led so few to success. He 
acknowledged that he had himself advanced no farther in the 
art of the adepts than the extraction from “philosophic earth” 
mixed with ‘“‘philosophic water’ of just so much, and no more, 
gold than he had employed at the beginning of the experiment. 
In spite of this, however, he worked daily before his oven, 
melting and purifying such metals as he needed for his planet- 
medallions, amulets and magical rings, and above all in pre- 
paring that effective alloy which is called electrum. 

From his laboratory our host conducted us into two other 
apartments with arched ceilings, forming a sort of museum of 
most extraordinary curiosities,—skeletons and dried limbs of 
various animals; fishes, birds, lizards, frogs, snakes, etc.; herbs 
and differently colored stones; whole and broken swords; nails 
extracted from coffins and gallows; flasks containing I know 
not what,—all arranged in groups under the signs of the dif- 
ferent planets. We beheld before us the wonderful and rich 
apparatus of practical magic arranged according to rules of 
which we were entirely ignorant,—rules which we had vainly 
sought in all the treatises of modern times upon the occult 
sciences of the Middle Ages, rules which might perhaps contain 
the simple principles underlying their confusion. 

Evening was drawing on. The sun was sinking behind the 
western hills. It was beginning to grow dark among the 
arches where the great magician had imprisoned himself among 
dead and withered relics,—fragments broken from the great 
and living world without. We returned to his observatory. 
He opened a window and contemplated with dreamy glances 
the stars which were kindling one after another in the heavens. 
The twilight is a favorable time for conversation of the kind 
for which we had been preparing ourselves. We were soon 
settled in comfortable, roomy armchairs and discoursing ear- 
nestly,—we, the man of the fifteenth century, and the unborn 
souls of the nineteenth, whom he had summoned that he might 
look into the future, and who now used him to look back into 
the past. He spoke to us of his science. . . 

“My knowledge is not of myself. Far, far away behind these 


ILLUSTRATIONS 339 


hills, behind the snowy summits of the Alps, behind the moun- 
tains of the ‘farthest-dwelling Garamantes,’ on nameless 
heights which disappear among the clouds, the temple of truth 
was built long ago over the fountain from which life flows. 
That this temple is demolished we well know; only the first 
human pair has wandered through its sacred halls... . All 
wisdom has its roots in the past, and the farther we penetrate 
antiquity, the richer the remains we find of a highest human 
wisdom. What is Albertus Magnus with his profound knowl- 
edge in comparison with the angelic wisdom of Dionysius Areo- 
pagites, and what is the latter compared with that of the 
prophet who denounced his woes over Nineveh and Babylon? 
And yet these divinely commissioned men would gladly have 
been taught by the seventy elders who were allowed with 
Moses to approach the mountain where God chose to reveal 
himself, there receiving the mystic knowledge of the Cabala. 
On Sinai, however, God’s secret was veiled in clouds, lightnings 
and terror; Moses himself was permitted to see him only ‘from 
behind, —did not obtain a morning-knowledge (a knowledge 
a priori, an analogy-seeking pupil of Schelling would have 
called it), but an evening-knowledge (knowledge a posteriori, 
he would have added). The morning-knowledge was shown 
only to the man of the dawn of time and was extinguished at 
the first sin. From that time every successive generation has 
deteriorated from its predecessor: 


Aetas parentum, pejor avis, tulit 
Nos nequiores, mox daturos 
Progeniem vitiosiorem, 


and with the darkness of sin reason is plunged into constantly 
blacker depths. The individual seeker after truth may gain 
enlightenment, but for himself alone, not for humanity. There- 
fore a magician confines the wisdom he acquires to his own 
bosom, or imparts it to a single pupil, or buries it under ob- 
scure expressions which he commits to parchment. But he 
neither can nor will impart it without reserve to humanity 
whose path appears to lead downward into a constantly deeper 
night. 


3840 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


“Even the theologians speak of the pristine wisdom,—the 
theologians with whom we, who practice the occult science, 
agree far more than the simple and suspicious among them 
think. What remained, in the time of Noah, of pristine wis- 
dom was saved with him in the ark. His first-born obtained 
as his portion the fairest wisdom. Prophecy, the Cabala, and 
the Gospel belong to the sons of Shem, the Jews. But even 
Ham and Japhet were not left destitute. It was the priest of 
the sons of Ham that guarded the secrets of Isis,—secrets be- 
fore which even we Christians must bow in the dust; for the 
Old Testament does not hesitate to exalt the wisdom of the 
Egyptians and recognize Moses as a pupil from their school. 
Hermes Trismegistus was an Egyptian, and we magicians who 
know that he transmuted whatever he chose into gold and 
precious stones, are not astonished when the apostle Paul 
- speaks of the treasures of Egypt, or at what travellers relate 
of its pyramids and other giant works, or when Pliny esti- 
mates the number of its cities at twenty thousand, or when 
Marcellinus is amazed at the immense treasures which Cam- 
byses carried away from it, for all this was a creation of the 
art of Hermes Trismegistus. Even the portion of the children 
of Japhet was not insignificant. It was divided between the 
treasury of Zoroaster and that of the Eleusinian mysteries. 
Some coins of this treasure fell into the hands of Plato and 
Aristotle and have from them come into the possession of 
Porphyrius, Jamblichus, and the theosophists and scholastics, 
It is this diffused illumination—that of the Bible (its inner, 
secret meaning) the Cabala and fragments of Egyptian, Per- 
sian and Grecian wisdom—which are collected and united in 
the magic of learning. These are the ancestors of my science. 
Has it not a pedigree more noble than that of any royal 
family? 

“T heard you mention something about the necessity for a 
science of investigation without presupposition. Would you 
then really presume to be the judge of all that past generations 
have thought, believed and transmitted as a sacred inheritance 
to those that follow? Do you not shrink before the idea that 
human hunger for truth must have been satisfied from Adam 
to our own days by nothing but illusions, that you are the 


ILLUSTRATIONS 341 


children and children’s children of mere idiots who have fixed 
their hopes, their faith, and their convictions on baseless false- 
hoods? Put your godless plan of investigation to the test! Do 
it openly, and the theologians will burn you! Do it in secret, 
and you will finally crave the stake as a liberator from the ter- 
rible void such a science would leave in your own soul! No, 
the magician believes just as devoutly as the theologian. Only 
in the mellow twilight of faith can he undertake those opera- 
tions whose success is a confirmation of the truth of his faith. 
Or do you require stronger corroboration of the genuineness of 
his tenets than what I find when I read in these stars which 
wander silently past my window, the fates of men, and see 
these fates accomplished; when, with the potency of magical 
means, I summon angels, and demons, and the souls of dead 
and unborn men to reveal themselves before my eyes, and they 
appear ? 

“T confess that our science, if it is looked at only on the 
surface, resembles a variegated carpet with artfully interwoven 
threads. But as only a limited number of manipulations is re- 
quired to produce the most remarkable texture, so it is also but 
a few simple thoughts which support all the doctrines and 
products of magic. 

“That the universe is a triple harmony, as the Godhead is a 
Trinity, you are aware. We live in the elemental world; over 
our head the celestial space, with its various spheres, revolves; 
and above this, finally, God is enthroned in the purely spiritual 
world of ideas. The unhappy scientists of your century have 
in their narrow prejudice separated these worlds from one 
another (but by crowding together the celestial and the ele- 
mentary). Your so-called students of nature investigate only 
the elementary world, and your so-called philosophers only the 
ideal. But the former, with all their delving in the various 
forms of matter, never reach the realm of the spiritual, but 
are rather led to disavow its existence; and the latter can never 
from the dim world of ideas summon up the concrete wealth of 
nature. In vain your students of nature imagine that in physi- 
ology, or your philosophers that in anthropology, they shall find 
the transition from one world to the other. We magicians, on 
the contrary, study these worlds as a unit. We find them com- 


842 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


bined by two mighty bonds: those of correspondence and 
causality. All things in the elementary world have their anti- 
type in the celestial, and all celestial things have their corre- 
sponding ideas. These correspondences are strung from above 
downwards as strings on the harp of the universe, and on that 
harp the causalities move up and down like the fingers of a 
player. While your students of nature seek the chains of 
causality in only one direction, the horizontal, that which runs 
through things on the same level, that which connects things in 
one and the same elementary world, we, the students of magic, 
search with still greater diligence those perpendicular chains of 
causality which run through and combine corresponding objects 
in the three worlds. Our manner of investigating this per- 
pendicular series resembles your method of examining the 
horizontal but slightly, if at all. What unnecessary trouble 
your induction causes you! You wish to investigate the nature 
of some manifestation of force, for instance. You analyze it 
with great painstaking into different factors, you strive to iso- 
late each of these factors and to cause them to act each its own 
part, to find out what each has contributed to the common ex- 
pression of force. We meet with no such hindrances. A se- 
cret tradition has presented to us our perpendicular lines of 
causality almost entire, and we are able to fill up the lacunz 
of this tradition by an investigation which is not impeded with 
any great difficulties. This investigation relies on the re- 
semblances of things, for this similarity is derived from a cor-. 
respondence, and causality is interwoven with correspondence. 
Thus, for instance, we judge from the resemblance between the 
splendor of gold and that of the sun that gold has its celestial 
correspondence in that luminary, and sustains to it a causal 
relation. Another example: the two-horned beetle bears a 
causal relation to the moon, which at its increase and wane 
is also two-horned; and if there were any doubt of this inti- 
mate relation between them, it must vanish when we learn 
that the beetle hides its eggs in the earth for the space of 
twenty-eight days, or just so long time as is required for 
the moon to pass through the Zodiac, but digs them up again 
on the twenty-ninth, when the moon is in conjunction with the 
Sun. Do not smile at this method of investigation! Beware 


ILLUSTRATIONS 343 


of repeating the mistakes which ‘common sense’ is so prone to 
make in seeing absurdities in truths which happen to be beyond 
its horizon? Our method is founded on the idea that there is 
nothing casual in nature. To be sure we accept a divine ar- 
bitrament, but by no means a natural fortuity. Not even the 
slightest similarity between existing objects is a meaningless 
accident! Not even the slightest stroke in the figures by which 
we fix our words and thoughts in writing is without deep 
significance. Everything in the work of nature and of man 
has its cause and its effect. We can not make a gesture, nor 
say a word, without imparting vibrations to the whole uni- 
verse, upward and downward,—vibrations which may be strong 
or feeble, perceptible or imperceptible. This principle runs 
through the whole of our cosmical system, and this thought 
must be true even for you analyzers. 

“Before explaining more fully the magical use of our series 
of correspondence and causality, I wish to show you a couple 
of them. I shall choose the simplest, but at the same time the 
most important. I commence with 

“Here you see one of the nets which magic has stretched 
from the Empyrean down into the abyss. For each of the 
sacred numbers there is a separate scale of the same kind: 
‘The universe, says Pythagoras, ‘is founded upon numbers,’ 
and Boethius asserts that “everything created in the beginning 
of time was formed according to the relations of certain num- 
bers, which were lying as types in the mind of the Creator.’ 
It is consequently a settled fact with us that numbers contain 
greater and more effective forces than material things; for 
the former are not a mixture of substances, but may, as purely 
formal entities, stand in immediate connection with the ideas 
of divine reason. This is recognized also by the fathers: by 
Hieronymus, Augustine, Ambrosius, Athanasius, Bede, and 
others, and underlies these words in the book of Revelation: 
‘Let him who hath understanding count the number of the 
beast.’ Those varied and relatively discordant objects which 
form a unity in the same world, are arranged side by side in 
the scale; whereas those things which in different groups or 
different worlds correspond to one another, form the ascending 
and descending series. 


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346 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


“Do not forget that correspondence also implies reciprocal 
activity! Thus, for instance, the letter ;(/) in the holy name 
of God indicates a power which is infused into the successive 
orders of Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones, and which is im- 
parted through them to the constellations Leo and Sagittarius, 
and to the two wandering luminaries, Mars and the Sun. These 
angels and stars all pour down into the elementary world the 
abundance of their power, which produces there fire and heat, 
and the germs of animal organisms, and kindles in man reason 
and faith, in order to meet finally in the lowest region, its oppo- 
sites: cold, destruction, irrationality, unbelief, represented by 
the names of fallen angel-princes. I will now show you another 
table which is an introduction to the study of Astrology and 
treats more in detail of certain parts of the preceding, showing 
how things in the elementary world and microcosm are sub- 
ject to the planets. In showing this to you I will remind you 
of the verse: 

“The value of these, as of many other tables, will be clear 
to you when I now pronounce the first practical principle of 
magic: 

“As the Creator of the universe diffuses upon us, by angels, 
stars, elements, animals, plants, metals and stones, the powers 
of his omnipotence, so also the magician, by collecting those 
objects in the elemental world which bear a relation of mutual 
activity to the same entity (an angel or a planet) in the higher 
worlds, and by combining their powers according to scientific 
rules, and intensifying them by means of sacred and religious 
ceremonies, 1s able to influence this higher being and attract to 
himself its powers. 

“This principle sufficiently explains why I have collected 
around me all the strange things you here see. Here, for in- 
stance, is a plate of lead on which is engraved the symbol of 
a planet ; and beside it a leaden flask containing gall. If I now 
take a piece of fine onyx marked with the same planet-symbol, 
and this dried cypress-branch, and add to them the skin of a 
snake and the feather of an owl, you will need but to look into 
one of the tables given you to find that I have only collected 
various things in the elementary world which bear a relation 
of mutual activity to Saturn; and, if rightly combined, can at- 





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uoojy 


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*s[e12° 7 


"surg 


*s[eMIUYy 


"SOULSODOIOTPAT 


*‘s]UDWIO[Y 


848 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


tract both the powers of that planet, and of the angels with 
which it is connected. 

“The greatest effect of magic—at the same time its triumph, 
and the criterion of its truth—is a successful incantation. 
Shall we perform one? If we go through all the necessary 
preparations, we shall have a bird’s-eye view of the whole 
secret science. Only certain alchemists have a still greater end 
in view; they aspire to produce in the retort man himself,— 
nay, the whole world. You men of the nineteenth century 
know only by reputation of our attempts to produce an ho- 
munculus, and a perpetuum mobile nature. Could you only 
count the drops of perspiration these efforts have wrung from 
us! There is something enchanting, something overpowering, 
in alchemy. It is gigantic in its aims, and in its depths dwells 
a thought which is terrible, because it threatens to crush that 
very cosmic philosophy on which our faith is founded. We 
occupy ourselves with the elements, until the idea steals upon 
us that everything is dependent on them; that everything, 
Creator and created, is included in them; that everything arises 
by necessity and passes away by necessity. If you can only 
collect in the crucible those elements and life-germs which were 
stirring in chaos, then you can also produce, in the crucible, the 
six days of creation, and find the spirit which formed the 
universe. I have abandoned alchemy only to escape this 
thought ; but a parchment will, sealed with seven seals and hid- 
den in the most secret corners of my vaults, contains the 
remarkable experiences I have had when experimenting for the 
perpetuum mobile and homunculus. 

“But to the preparations for our conjuration! First we are 
met with the question, Is the hour favorable? Do the aspects 
oppose? Aspect is the relative position of two planets to each 
other. Every calendar from the centuries which lie between’ 
you and me speaks of these aspects: of the conjunction of the 
planets (when they are on the same meridian, and consequently 
separated by no angular distance) ; their opposition (when in 
a directly opposite part of the heavens) ; their quadrature (dis- 
tance of 90°), trigon (120°), and hexagon (60°). If the blood- 
red Mars, or the pale Saturn stand in quadrature or in oppo- 
sition to one another, or to any of the other wandering stars, 


ILLUSTRATIONS 349 


this portends destruction. But to-day both these planets are 
harmless. The aspects are good, and Mars itself, being in the 
first ‘face’ of its own house,’ is consequently even kindly dis- 
posed. Even the moon, whose assistance is needed, is in the 
house of a friendly star, and in a favorable quadrature to 
Jupiter. Here we meet consequently with no hindrances. It 
remains, however, on the side of Astrology to find out what 
planets are the regents of the present year. In other words, 
what planets form the first aspect of the year. Look here in 
my calendarium. Mars was one of them. This suits us all 
the better as to-day is Tuesday, Mars’ own day, and as the 
hour will soon be here which, on this day, he presides over 
absolutely. It is therefore of importance that we use in our 
incantation the martial part of my magical apparatus. Among 
the elements fire is martial. We shall therefore kindle a fire 
upon this altar. Among the planets, the thorny, poisonous and 
nettlelike are martial. We shall therefore feed this fire with 
dry twigs and rosebushes. Among the animals the ferocious 
and bold are connected with the blood-red star. Here you see 
three belts of lion’s hide fringed with the teeth of tigers, leop- 
ards and bears, and provided with clasps of iron, because iron 
is the martial metal. Let us fasten those belts, when the time 
has arrived, about our waists. Among the stones the diamond, 
amethyst, jasper and magnet are martial. I show you here 
three diadems which, though of pure iron, sparkle with these 
stones, and are furnished with the signs and signatures of 
our planet. Here you have three iron staves marked with 
the same signs. We must bear them in our hands. These 
breast-plates studded with amethysts, whose Hebrew inscrip- 
tions and characters refer to the same stars, we must wear 
over our hearts on the outside of the white clothing which we 
shall put on before our incantation begins. Here again you 
will notice three diamond rings. We shall wear them on our 

1 Every planet had among the twelve signs of the Zodiac its own house, and it 


was especially propitious when in any of those abodes. The following table shows 
the order: 


Saturn dwells in Capricornus. my 

Jupiter # ‘* Pisces and Sagittarius. 
ars * “* Aries and Scorpio. 

The Sun “¢ “Leo. 

Venus a “ Taurus and Ursa Major. 

Mercurius oe “* Virgo and Gemini. 


The Moon ee <* Cancer. 


850 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


middle fingers during the solemn and awful moment for which 
we are preparing. These two bells we place on the table. One 
of a reddish alloy and furnished with iron rings, summons 
the martial spirit hither, the other made of electrum magicum 
(i.e., a proportional alloy of all metals with some astral tinc- 
ture added), serves to call celestial reserve-forces of all kinds, 
if needed. Further, we require these breast-plates and these 
rings of electrum, which do not bear the name of any planet, 
but the glorious and blessed name of God himself, as a pro- 
tection for the conjurers against the conjured spirit. Who he 
is we shall soon find. Observe here, further, a terrible arsenal 
which is also necessary for our purpose. Mars is the star 
of war, murder and passion. The demons of Mars have a 
corresponding nature, and there exists between them and the 
tools by which their work on earth is accomplished a power 
of attraction. Therefore we have here this heavy sword with 
which the magic circle is to be drawn. We therefore place in 
rows these skulls and bones which have been collected in places 
of execution, these nails, extracted from gallows, these dag- 
gers, knives and axes rusty with stains of blood. We must not 
forget the incense which was kindled on the altar shortly before 
the first citation. There is a different kind of incense for every 
planet and its demons. That appropriate for Mars is composed 
of euphorbia, bdellium, ammoniac, magnet, sulphur, brains of 
a raven, human blood and the blood of a black cat. It is 
highly important that the quality of this incense should be 
genuine. I might quote what Porphyrius says upon this point, 
but confine myself to pointing out that it has an influence on 
the conjurer as well as upon surrounding objects. It saturates 
both the air, and the breast of the conjurer, with substances that 
are connected with the planet and its demons. It draws down 
the conjured being and intoxicates him, as it were, with divine 
influences, which act on his mind and imagination. As a mat- 
ter of course we must prepare besides, such implements as are 
needed in every incantation without bearing any relation to any 
certain planet. To them belong amulets inscribed with the 
names of seraphs, cherubs and thrones, and with sentences 
from the Bible and the sacred books of Zoroaster. To them 
belong further the magical candlestick of electrum with seven 


ILLUSTRATIONS 351 


branches, every branch bearing the sign of a planet; and above 
all the pentagrams, those figures with fine points which no 
demon can overstep. We shall place the latter as a line of 
fortification around the magic circle, and we must be sure 
that no one of the points is broken. Inside the circle between 
the table, the seven-armed candlestick and the incense-altar 
there is room for the tripod with the bowl of holy water and 
the sprinkler. 

“Having thus made the necessary preparations for our feast, 
let us think of the guest who is to be invited. 

“The air of the evening is cool. I close the window, move 
my study lamp to this table, and ask you to be seated around 
it. We must consult concerning the invitation, in which we 
must follow the directions given in this cabalistic manu- 
script. 

“You have found from the table I first showed you that it 
is the orders of Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones which are 
related by a reciprocal activity to Mars. But these three orders 
constitute the highest celestial hierarchy, which remain con- 
stantly in the presence of God and must not be summoned 
hither even if we were able to do so. We may only implore 
their assistance. The orders of Dominions, Powers and Em- 
pires are the only intelligences connected with the stars. 
Among them we must address ourselves to the spirits of Mars, 
since Mars is the regent of this year, this day and of the 
intended incantation. The choice between the good and the 
evil spirits ruled by Mars is still open; but since it is not our 
purpose to invoke by supplication, but to compel by conjura- 
tion, we must choose the wicked. This is no sin, it is only 
danger. It gives joy to the good angels to see the power of 
God’s image over their adversaries. But we cannot force the 
whole host of Mars’ demons to appear in our circle. We must 
select one only among their legion, and this one must be well 
chosen. It is therefore necessary to know his name, for with 
spirits, far more than men and terrestrial things, the name 
implies the essence and the qualities of the named. The Cabala 
teaches us the infinite significance of words and names. It 
proclaims and demonstrates the mysteries which dwell in all 
the holy names of God. It reveals to us the mysteries in the 


352 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


appellations of angels. It shows us that even the names of 
men are intimately related to the place in creation and the 
temporal destiny of those who bear them. Even names of 
material things show, though less distinctly, a connection be- 
tween the sound and the thing itself or its nature. Who can 
hear, for instance, the words wind, or swing, without perceiv- 
ing in the very sound something airy or oscillating? Who can 
hear stand, and strong, without perception of something stable 
and firm? 

“Let us hasten to find the name of the demon who is to be 
summoned. Astrology as well as the Cabala give various 
methods for this purpose. Let us choose the simplest, which 
is perhaps also the most efficient. 

“T must commence our work by pointing out the significance 
of number 72. To this number correspond the seventy-two 
languages, the seventy-two elders of the synagogue, the seventy- 
two interpreters of the Old Testament and the seventy-two 
disciples of our Lord. This number is also closely connected 
with the sacred number twelve. If the twelve signs of the 
Zodiac are divided into six parts, we obtain the seventy-two 
so-called celestial quinaries, into which the seventy-two mystical 
names of God, his “‘schemhamphoras,’ infuse their power and 
which are each of them presided over by an angel-prince. The 
same number also corresponds to the joints of the human 
frame; and there are many other correspondences. 

“Well, while the Cabalists were searching out the sacred inner 
meaning of the Bible, while they proceeded slowly, starting with 
the ‘In the beginning,’ and stopping at every word, every letter, 
and found in every word and every letter a mine of secrets, they 
finally, after the lapse of centuries, came as far as to the 19th 
verse in the 14th chapter of Exodus, commencing: ‘And the 
angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel arose.’ 
The cabalistical rule bk east wherever, in the Bible, an angel 
is spoken of, there is also the name of an angel hidden among 
the Hebrew letters of the verse, admonished them to pause 
and consider. They had at first no idea of the extraordinary 
discovery they were now on the point of making. But their 
attention was attracted by the fact that there were seventy-two 
letters in the verse (in the Hebrew text). Still more sur- 


ILLUSTRATIONS 353 


prised were they when they found that even the following verse, 
the 2oth, contained exactly seventy-two letters; and then sur- 
prise grew into awe when even the 21st verse showed the 
same number. In the Bible there is no fortuity. A great secret 
was hidden here. Finally, by placing the three verses, letter 
by letter (the middle verse written from left to right, the 
others conversely), above one another, God’s seventy-two mys- 
tical names ‘schemhamphoras’ each consisting of three letters, 
from the three verses, was discovered. These names, provided 
with the suffix el or jah, are also the names of the seventy-two 
quinary angels, of which God has said that his name is in 
them. 

“Here in this cabalistic manuscript these names are pre- 
served. Let us select one of them at random. My eye happens 
to fall upon Mizrael first. We will take that. This high name 
of an angel which we may not invoke, will give us the key to 
the name of the demon which is to appear presently. Here 
is the table that will help us. The three root-consonants of the 
word Mizra (el) correspond to three others in the planet Mars, 
which contain the name—let us pronounce it silently, let us 
merely whisper it, for it is the name of the desired demon— 
Tekfael ! 

“The sum of the numerical value of the letters in this name 
is 488. A remarkable number, every figure reminding us of 
the mystical four, of the elements and of their corresponden- 
ces! We shall commune with one of the mightiest and most 
terrible among the demons. On the waxen tablet with an iron 
frame, I now inscribe the name of the demon, adding the num- 
ber 488, and these peculiar strokes which make up his signature. 
Time does not allow me to tell you now the rules by which 
the signature is formed from the name. 

“The preparations are now completed. It only remains to 
order the apparatus, and to array ourselves. When we have 
put our implements in order, consecrated the room, cleansed 
ourselves by a bath, put on the white robe, wrapped a red 
mantle around (for red is the color of Mars), buckled the 
girdle of Mars about our waists, assumed the diadem, the 
breastplates and the rings, I kindle on the altar my magical 
light, and the fire for incense, and draw the magical circle. 


354 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


Then an intense prayer for the protection of God, then the in- 
cantation. 

“Here is the conjuration-book, the so-called Conjurer of 
Hell. I open at the page on which the martial incantations 
begin. The book is placed within the circle. When needed, 
I grasp it with the left hand. I hold the staff with my 
Tighe ie 

The Gothic room in which the incantation was to take place, 
presented a strange and at the same time solemn and awful 
aspect. The magician had arranged with practiced hand the 
things before mentioned. The skulls, the bones of men and 
beasts, the murderous weapons and the martial essence-flasks, 
the various and indescribable fragments from all the kingdoms 
of nature formed, nearest to the walls, different figures, tri- 
angles, squares and pentagons. Red drapery was hung over 
the naked walls. In the midst of the room and inside the 
circularly arranged pentagram were the fire and incense-altar 
with holy water. On a table in the rear, but partly within the 
circle, the magical lights were burning, and diffused an un- 
certain whitish-yellow light over the objects. Near the candle- 
stick were the two bells. We were arrayed in our garments. 
The face of my companion was pale as death: probably mine 
also. 

“Courage, fortitude! . . . or you are lost!’’ whispered the 
magician, whose eye beamed with a dark, solemn determination, 
and whose every feature expressed at this moment a terrible 
resolution. 

These were his last words before the incantation. We were 
allowed to answer nothing. I tried to be courageous, but my 
soul was shaken by a dreadful expectation. The prayer and 
religious ceremonies which we had performed after the bath 
and change of dress, had not diminished but only intensified this 
feeling. 

The night wind shook the windows hidden behind the heavy 
draperies. It seemed as if ghosts from another world had 
been lurking behind the gently waving curtains. 

Even the skulls appeared to me to bode from their sunken, 
vacant eyes, the arrival of something appalling. One of them 
attracted my attention for a long time, or rather exercised on 


ILLUSTRATIONS 355 


me the same influence which the eye of the rattlesnake is said 
to have upon the bird which he approaches to devour. I no- 
ticed in the eye a metallic lustre. It was the gleam of the 
light reflected from a martial stone fastened in the skull. 

In the meantime the magician had seized the blood-stained 
sword and drew, murmuring a prayer the while, a threefold 
magical circle around the pentagram. Between the circumfer- 
ences he wrote the names of the angels of the year, the sea- 
son, the day and the hour. Towards the east he made the 
sign of Alpha, towards the west of Omega. Then he divided 
the circle by a cross into four fields. He assigned two of them, 
those behind him, to me and my companions. They were large 
enough to kneel upon. We were strictly enjoined not to leave 
them, not to allow even a fold of our mantles to wave outside 
the circle. Forgetfulness in this respect would cost us our 
lives. The magician put aside his sword in a triangle outside 
of the circle. He sprinkled himself and us with holy water, 
read formularies over the incense and the thorn twigs, and 
kindled them. This was the sign for us to give ourselves to 
prayer. We must not cease praying until we had heard the 
first word of the incantation. The incense spread, as it were, 
a dim transparent veil over the room. Here and there it was 
condensed into strange figures. Now human, now fantastic 
animal shapes arose against the vaulted wall and sank again. 

There must have been something narcotical in those vapory 
clouds. I looked at them in a half-dreaming state while my 
lips repeated inaudibly the enjoined prayers. 

I was aroused from this condition by the first word of the 
incantation, which struck my soul like a thunderbolt, and 
awakened me to full consciousness of my position and of the 
significance of the hour. The blood in my veins seemed 
changed to ice. 

The magician stood before me, tall, erect and commanding. 
He had taken the incantation-book, and now read from it with 
a hollow voice the first citation, which begins with a long for- 
mulary invoking the different mystical names of God. 

I cannot repeat the quotation. The highest and the lowest, 
the divine and the infernal, that for whose sacredness we feel 
an irrepressible reverence, and that for whose impiety we ex- 


3856 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


perience the deepest horror, were united here in the most sol- 
emn and the most terrible words that human tongue has ever 
stammered. Now first I began to form an idea of the power 
of words. 

The name of the demon was not yet uttered. The nearer 
the moment for its pronunciation approached, the deeper be- 
came the voice of the magician. Now came the formula of 
invocation, and now—resounded the name TEKFAEL! 

It appeared as if a thousand-fold but whispering echo from 
the vault above, from the corners of the room, from all the 
skulls and from the very incantation-book itself, repeated that 
name. 

The magician became silent, the incense was condensed and 
assumed a reddish tint, which gradually became more and more 
diffused. We seemed to hear the thunder rolling, at first from 
a distance, then nearer, finally over our heads. It was as if 
the tower had-been shaken and the vault over our heads been 
rent. My knees trembled. Suddenly a flash of lightning shot 
through the red mass. The magician extended his staff, as if 
he had wished to stop it. He raised his voice anew, strong and 
powerful amidst the continued peals of thunder. The smoke 
grew thin again. From its wreaths there appeared before the 
magician in the immediate vicinity of the circle, and at the op- 
posite end of his staff, a dim apparition, a figure whose first 
aspect bereft me of my reason. I felt as if I had fallen to 
the floor,—as if I had been lost. ... 


I awakened with the perspiration of agony on my forehead, 
but fortunately in my own bed and in the nineteenth century. 
The view from my window is cheerful and enlivening. I see 
a river which bears proud ships, quays swarming with men, 
and broad streets with houses in a graceful and light Renats- 
sance style. I lived again in the present which pleased me 
the best, next to dreaming of the future... . 


They strove for something great, however, those learned 
magicians of the Middle Ages. Theirs was a mighty imagina- 
tive creation. It lies in ruins never to arise again. But the 
crumbled debris testify to the belief in all-embracing human 
power and knowledge. 


NOTES 


Page 23. The visual quality dominant in Stevenson and Conrad is 
characteristic of modern biography and fiction. Sense images have 
become an indispensable feature of the literature of our day. Writing 
was once too labored, formal, and self-conscious to use them spon- 
taneously and strongly. They have come into books and magazines 
because they abound in the everyday speech of most of us when we 
attempt to tell of what has happened or how things look. We can 
generally describe and narrate more vividly and effectively in oral than 
in written speech. This, we may suspect, is an inherited weakness, but 
is evidently curable. 

P. 28. Scenes and objects that seem well enough presented, accord- 
ing to principles illustrated in Chapter I, are often found capable of 
improvement beyond an organic arrangement of elements or parts. 

Imaging again the details of the example (p. 19) from Flandrau, we 
are led to ask ourselves, Did the Mexican hold the cage before himself 
as he descended, or did he set it down on the floor of the omnibus, and 
teach in after it on emerging? Which manner would be more likely 
to oie the attention of the people, including this author, on the 
street: 

On settling these questions, the scene begins to alter. It is more 
than likely that the parrot cage was stuffed, not with new shoes, but 
with old ones. To add ‘old’ will make the visualization more definite 
and sure. There will be small risk also in aiding the process by mention 
of the sombrero that such a Mexican would almost certainly wear. 
So the writer might have outlined his incidentally enlivening picture 
more suggestively and strongly, much perhaps like this: 


Once on Wall Street, I saw emerge through the door of an omnibus 
a parrot cage stuffed with old shoes, then the arm and sombrero of a 
young Mexican, bending forward to alight. 


The persistent center is still of course the parrot cage, as it is 
borne away along the street. 

Study of another description, more complex and extended, will be 
helpful here: 


The plan of the house was even more eccentric than had been reported. 
Some of the outside features also were remarkable. The foundation 
and the first story were of dressed gray stone, while the story above 
was of rough-faced brick. The hedge about the house, which was square, 
was green and square-trimmed all around, and topped with a single barbed 
wire. Iron gates, painted a shining black, gave access at the middle of 
each of the four sides. The third story of the hotise was low, and 
faced with cement or stucco, and the roof was flat. The house stood 
at the center of a grass-covered city block. The high porch in front 
was supported by four square pillars, which were white. A somewhat 
low square cupola surmounted the whole at the middle of the roof. 


We shall often note how helpful it is, in description, to use the 
eyes of another to visualize with. In the former instance, Flandrau’s 
“TI saw” is better, for us, than ee in Wall Street there was seen,” 


358 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


etc. Among foregoing quoted paragraphs, we may compare other 
significant examples. So here we might well begin rewriting with 
“We came out upon a block vacant except for,” etc. 

The persistent center of the view is at once unmistakably the lone 
house at the middle of the block. Then, narrowing to features of the 
building, it identifies itself with the queer white pillars reaching to 
the third story. The white flat-roof cupola now draws our attention 
upward, and is naturally mentioned next. From here we take note 
of aspects downward till we reach the ground, the grassy square, and 
its encircling hedge. It is all singularly odd, and will be sufficiently 
picturesque if presented thus, approximately after the manner in which 
a visitor would inspect the scene: 


We came out, in a thickly built-up quarter of the city, upon a grass- 
grown square, vacant, save for a large cube-like house standing alone 
at the center, with two white box-like pillars in front supporting a porch 
at the level of the third story. There was a low square white cupola 
at the middle of the flat projecting roof. The highest of the three 
stories was of stucco, the middle one, of rough-faced brick, the first 
or lowest, of dressed gray stone. The block was enclosed with a square- 
trimmed green hedge, topped with a single barbed wire. Shining-black 
iron gates offered entry, one on each street, at the middle of the hedge. 


P. 35. A moment’s reflection will help us realize better the part 
which Sense Appeals play in the concerns of outside life. Millions of 
dollars are expended every week in thrusting upon our attention the 
realistic appearance of meats, drinks, confectionery, cosmetics, coiffures, 
gowns, ornaments, through use of cuts, fashion plates, billboards, and 
the like. Some pictorial advertisements are addressed to refined taste, 
but are prevailingly of the sort considered in this chapter. Outside 
of incidental allusion, they occur in literature as theme substance in 
novels and short stories, notably in Conrad’s Youth, and Lord Jim, in 
Kipling’s ‘Strange Ride,’ and in records of privation in sieges, polar 
exploration, as also in veritable or fanciful reports of South Sea travel 
or adventure. 

P. 45. The visualization of persons, as we at once discover, in- 
volves much more than imaging their outward looks. We picture these 
in fancy because of discerning even more distinctly in each case the 
inner self or personality. But we must wait till study of Chapter XVI 
to appreciate this fully. 

P. 76. This seems to have been the ‘undistributed,’ unspecific mean- 
ing in Maupassant’s descriptive formula: 


'In order to describe a fire that flames, and a tree on the plain, one 
needs to keep looking at that flame and that tree, until to one’s eye they 
no longer resemble any other tree or any other flame. 


The skeleton configuration of an object constitutes its essence, its reality. 
The artist or even draftsman does what Maupassant prescribes, but 
does more, and does it quickly,—he analyzes. He cannot draw the out- 
line of any object unless or until he has discovered it in its individual 
lines and angles. 

P. 77. Conrad ventures (Youth, p. 76) this rather striking use of 
form for objects exhibiting it: 


Near the same tree two more bundles of acute angles sat with their 
legs drawn up. 


NOTES 359 


P. 82. The first postulate of Description with each of us should 
be, Whatever I can see, that is, analyze into salient and significant ele- 
ments, I can command means to say. Whatever the art student finds 
possible to draw, the literary student should find possible to describe. 

P. 96. Narration is perforce dramatic. Visualizing narration has 
two scales, the scale of memory, and the scale of imagination. The 
scale of memory brings back the personal presence or group stature 
of people among whom we have figured. The scale of imagination 
presents the folk of whom we read or hear as at distance, as on some 
sort of a stage before us, some half-dozen yards or more away. 

P. 111. Of course the subject of Narration may be considered under 
other heads. The purpose in the divisions proposed here is mainly to 
administer the element of time, so that the student may canvass or at 
least rehearse the resources on which he will have to draw. 

P. 129. Many if not most people have a technic or personal differ- 
ential in conversation, out of which they cater for themselves and gen- 
erally for those about them delicate or subtle satisfactions. In fact, 
we are all continually trying experiments upon our mother speech, not 
only by saying the same things differently from other people, but dif- 
ferently from our last and perhaps all our former ways. The aunt who, 
playfully inquiring about her obese nephew, has hit upon the phrase, 
‘How is his fatship this morning,’ furnishes one of a thousand illustra- 
tions. The word comes unsought in a flash of fancy, is quickly lost, 
and will probably never be heard again. But it gave, in this true inci- 
dent, a spice of pleasure to the interview. Bon mots like this fill a large 
place in the amenities of life, and hardly less in the fellowship of books. 

All intelligent speakers in every country are trying like experiments 
on the matter and manner of their respective languages. Born of 
these random locutions come needed additions to each nation’s speech. 
Some one hit upon and hazarded, not long ago, the figure graft, and 
the word has followed the ‘morning English drumbeat’ round the 
world. Considerably later, some keen-visioned man of affairs propounds 
overhead to distinguish plant and office expenses from other business 
costs, and the name is at once appropriated as indispensable by the whole 
country. Some one applies ‘assembled’ to a bicycle or automobile not 
all made in the same factory, and this bit of linguistic technic becomes 
a standard term. Among the thousands of such inventions, some few 
like ‘graft’? and ‘bootleg’ rise to the dictionary level. ‘Overhead,’ one 
might predict, will one day follow them. But the vast multitude of oral 
coinings will persist only within the unwritten vernacular until they are 
worn out or superseded. 

The purpose of this chapter is to arouse attention to the values in 
our orally invented mots, and to encourage learners of every age to ven- 
ture them circumspectly, not only in letter-writing, but in more deliber- 
ate and serious composition. Kipling did this, and won an ‘introduc- 
tion’ to his Plain Tales from no less a pundit of culture than Charles 
Eliot Norton. The spirit of classicism would have us suppress all per- 
sonal variants in diction, as was realized in France a hundred years ago 
when Chateaubriand and Madame de Staél excised their brilliant phrases 
from René and Atila, from Corinne and L’Allemagne. It is our lot 
to be born in an era of individualism which they did not live to see. 
Somewhat of its deeper significance and inspiration will be discussed 
in Chapter XXVI. 


360 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


P. 148. To help clarify our notions on this disputed subject, may 
we not say that the orthodox literary essay is expositional writing eclec- 
tically pursued, mainly in a vein of meditation, and largely with the 
motive of artistic delectation? The ‘philosophical,’ the ‘political,’ and 
the ‘argumentative’ essay are permissive misnomers. The critical, the 
biographical, and the whimsical essay are recognized divisions of the 
generic idea. Any piece of writing that an author may choose to call 
an ‘essay’ can hardly be denied the pretensions of the name. Yet, in 
the face of this confusion, we are persuaded that there is or may be 
an excathedral, Stevensonian type of essay, which is an assaying at 
worth-while reflection, through what we call the association of ideas, 
but along (Chapter XXI) the path of discovery, with no foreknown 
or projected issue, the mind choosing its own steps, like the mind of one 
inditing a musical composition. To effect an expression of personality 
in a professional essay of this kind is the ambition of many, but the 
gift of few. 

P. 155. The ascertained fact that Europe and Africa were once united 
by land having a curved coast line furnishes the basis of the explana- 
tion here. The principle that cranes preferably migrate over a land 
course, and the law of inherited habit, supply the grounds of the expo- 
sition. 

P. 172. It is a notion rather generally held that we are drawing char- 
acter when, for instance, we affirm that A is ‘a real man,’ or that some 
certain young lady B is ‘too cute for anything. But by this we are 
really throwing A into a class along with perhaps half-a-billion others, 
or making B indistinguishable from a mass of brilliant women as numer- 
ous possibly as the whole population of France or even Russia. The 
impulse in such cases is centrifugal, and deals properly with stray objects 
not yet classified. We are to understand there are no duplicates in the 
material universe, much less among human creatures endowed with 
traits that we sum up as character. The impulse to characterize, on 
the contrary, is centripetal, and forces us to thrust upon attention some- 
thing strikingly individual, and so set our hearer at synthesizing a whole 
nature to match the unique manifestation. 

P. 173. Writers of the first class take over the oral modes of char- 
acter-drawing into literature as a matter of course. Authors less gifted 
fail to command the knack, or even identify the process, of those who 
do. Trollope tells naively thus, as it would seem, of his own empiric 
struggles: 


It is to be regretted that no mental method of daguerreotype or 
photography has yet been discovered by which the characters of men 
can be reduced to writing and put into grammatical language with an 
unerring precision of truthful description. How often does the novelist 
feel, ay, and the historian also and the biographer, that he has conceived 
within his mind and accurately depicted on the tablet of his brain the 
full character and personage of a man, and that nevertheless, when he 
flies to pen and ink to perpetuate the portrait, his words forsake, elude, 
disappoint, and play the deuce with him, till at the end of a dozen pages, 
the man described has not more resemblance to the man conceived than 
the sign-board at the corner of the street has to the Duke of Cambridge. 
—Barchester Towers I. 232. 


The degree to which writers of fiction are beginning to utilize the 
plain method of life is peculiarly interesting. The following char- 
acterization from (p. 5) Possession, by Mazo de la Roche, brings away 
no odor from the literary workshop: 


NOTES 361 


. A white wooden house appeared like some one sitting at the road 
side. " Hobbs was saying 
This is where .Chard ie You'll not find him much of a neighbor. 
Now I’ll just tell you what he’s like. Not long ago he hired some men 
from Mistwell to help him dig drains. Very well; when the end of the 
week came he paid the men, all but old Peek. And he says to him— 
Peek, you ‘re so old and feeble you can’t do as much as the others, 
so you'll come back to work two days more before I give ye a week’s 
wage. And the poor old devil had to. So now I’ve introduced Chard, 
the Superintendent of the Sunday-school, and a damned good farmer. 


P. 182. In the exigencies of oral characterization, we often merge 
kind and degree in an appeal of degree for both. This condensation 
is a characteristic of the Scotch ‘school’ of fiction, and more especially 
of the Kailyard group, whose prominence has been greatly due to this 
phase of the modern ‘return to nature.’ 

198. We should fix in our minds this universal postulate of 
Characterization: There is no man or woman above idiocy or insanity 
whose personality cannot be veritably portrayed, and at the same time 
made an object of extraordinary human and artistic interest. We have 
but to appeal to Shylock and Falstaff and Cleopatra as illustrative proofs. 

P. 205. Theoretically considered, appeals of emotion would seem un- 
distinguishable from appeals of character. But a little observation will 
show that we discriminate between the two kind of ‘effects given’ both 
consciously and confidently. We are often surprised at some outburst 
in a friend, but conclude that what we have witnessed is no proper 
symptom of personality. Again, in another case, we recognize that the 
paroxysm cannot be chargeable to anything less than character, and we 
revise our standing estimate accordingly. 

P. 207. Here we reach the prime discovery that the self is in essence 
not discoverable by acts or states which, on the part of the person to 
be characterized, involve attention. This proper self is not what we 
generally understand as ‘consciousness. There are in fact two selves, 
the conscious, and the subconscious. Discernment of the subconscious 
self or personality is not reached through such ‘appeals’ as we have 
been considering. Subconsciousness signs are the ultimates of human 
revealment and discovery. Here are more typical illustrations: 


Christy, standing on tiptoe, from boyish habit, to hang his hat up, 
though he is quite tall enough to reach the peg.—Shaw: The Devil’s 
Disciple, p. 6. 

He would pause and stare at nothing in particular, sometimes rubbing 
a leaf between finger and thumb, or snipping at the air with his garden- 
ing shears.—Deeping: The Strong Hand, p. 78. 

Christina was silent. She stretched out her arm and looked at it 
a moment absently, turning it so as to see—or almost to see—the 
dimple in her elbow.—James: Roderick Hudson, x, p. 141. 


Subconsciousness signs are perhaps discerned most readily when the 
person under notice’ tries to do two things at the same time. One of 
the things attempted masses attention. The other shows the man, the 
woman. The real humanness, the true worth and nobility in others and 
in ourselves, stand out self-revealed, self-registered. By subconscious- 
ness signs only do we find one another out. Moreover, only authors 
of rare vision and penetration present the characters they create by re- 
vealments of the subconscious self. But the ordinary conditions of in- 
dustrial and social life involve no such recourse to the highest human 
philosophy and art. The business head selects his clerks and even man- 


862 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY 


agers by rule-of-thumb elimination through the doctrine of ‘appeals.’ 


The housewife chooses her cook and probably her lady’s maid by such 
interpretation of ‘effects given’ as any one of her class in all the world 
would use. The object of characterization at first in every sort of novel 
is to set up for the reader a neighborhood probably little different in 
kind from the one he was born in, or at the moment hails from. But 
presently there is differentiation of two or three worth-while person- 
alities from the others. These the author has found out and presents 
in their spiritual individualities by letting us see signs of their sub- 
conscious selves. Meredith thus subtly reveals Lady Jocelyn (Chapter 
XXIX) in Evan Harrington. When Browning, in Luria (I. 97-100) 
wishes us to discover that his title character, under shadow of assas- 
Sination because suspected of intriguing with the enemy, is consum- 
mately true, he makes us listen to the testimony of one who has been 
Sune |eDon the man in unguarded moments, and is now disabused 
of doubt: 


: . Here I sit, your scribe, 
And in and out goes Luria, days and nights; 
This Puccio comes; the Moor—his other friend, 
Hussain; they talk—that’s all feigned easily; 
He speaks (I would not listen if I could), 
Reads, orders, counsels:—but he vests sometimes— 
I see him stand and eat, sleep stretched an hour 
On the lynx-skins yonder; hold his bared black arms 
Into the sun from the tent-opening; laugh 
When his horse drops the forage from his teeth 
And neighs to hear him hum his Moorish songs. 
That man believes in Florence, as the saint 
Tied to the wheel believes in God! 


The italics here are of course not Browning’s. The process this author 
uses, or rather makes his agent use, is the one employed by artists 
before they give sittings to their patrons. Murray Mackay has lately 
said, “I always spend a period of time getting acquainted with my sub- 
ject. I get him to relax and try to tune in on his wave length, so to 
speak. If my personality is sensitive to his, the true picture of his soul 
will paint itself into my hands, not by reasoning out the details of the 
portrait, but through the operation of a hidden, inner perception that 
has the qualities of feeling rather than clear-cut thought.” Professor 
Villard, in Jane Austin and Her Work, shows in detail how this author 
exquisitely develops the character of Emma, in her novel of that name, 
through subconscious ‘appeals’ or signs. 

P. 216. We are perhaps at times unclear as to what originality is, 
or whether anybody or anything can be rightly called original. Men 
had insight thousands of years ago, and may have divined truths which, 
lost for generations, are now rediscovered, and so credited only to 
modern thought. Evidently, the claims of first discovery cannot be abso- 
lutely established or guaranteed. But it is instinctive with us to recog- 
nize it and credit it so far as it can be known. Hence our pragmatic 
plan of honoring and vindicating priority of promulgation. As to the 
fact of originality, all the world assumes it, and accepts it as a value, 
not only in patent law, but universally in the domain of ideas as well 
as of action. 

P. 263. In poetry, typically, ideas that cannot but be emotionally or 
spiritually discerned are used to communicate ideas intended to be in- 
tellectually perceived: 


NOTES 363 


Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope 
The Lord’s anointed temple, and stole thence 
The life o’ the building. 


But in prose, typically, ideas that may involve eventual emotional effect 
are expressed in literal or intellectual terms: 


Duncan has been stabbed to death in his sleep. 


So prose cannot take on the high seriousness that comes from indirect- 
ness of phrase, such as seen in Macduff’s outburst, and in the opening lines 
of The Holy Grail. That belongs to poetry alone, and cannot be denied 
the reinforcement of high seriousness contributed from what we call the 
‘verse,’ or the ‘poetic’ form. 

P. 267. This truth was doubtless what Keats had in mind when he 
said Truth is Beauty, and Beauty, Truth. But this is misleading, for 
each is an inclusive manifestation of a spiritual solidarity. One side 
of the shield seems gold, and the other, silver, but the shield is both 
on either side. Our cognition of unconditioned Truth, Law, Moral 
Order is in part a cognition of unconditioned Beauty. These two fa- 
miliar lines from Tennyson’s The Princess (iii. 1, 2) will illustrate: 


Morn in the white wake of the morning star 
‘ Came furrowing all the orient into gold. 


To a mind especially sensitive to effects of color, the scene will first be 
one of beauty and inspire delight. In a mind alive to the vastness of 
the forces that are hurling and whirling our earth through space the 
lines will first arouse a frame of high seriousness or sublimity. But 
the reaction we call sublimity will after a moment give way to a lesser 
sentiment of beauty, as will the reaction of delight, in the first instance, 
merge itself into a less insistent feeling of the sublime. Trial of this 
sentence upon a miscellaneous group of readers will show, as here out- 
lined, that some are first more conscious of the one reaction, and some, 
the other, but that all will confidently testify in the end alike to an 
experience of the sublime, and of beauty, in differing degrees. 

Aristotle clearly insists that his o7ovdacéry¢ ‘high seriousness, is the 
basic, standard frame of the poet when he sees, and is the basic, stand- 
ard quality in what he says. But while the poet’s cognitions are 
major in high seriousness or sublimity, they are also minor in excel- 
lence, goodness, beauty. For o7ovdaioc, the adjective from which Aris- 
totle’s word for ‘high seriousness’ comes, means also ‘excellent,’ or what 
in philosophic language is known as ‘Beauty.’ Aristotle does not add that 
the other part of the meaning in o7ovdaidryc] might furnish forth poets 
of a lower class. What he says holds true of our greater poets, as 
Shakespeare. Tennyson, by count of instances, is a poet of the major 
class, as is Keats, of the minor. So, in prose, Carlyle contrasts ‘high- 
serious’ (o7ovdaioc) with, let us say, Fiona MacLeod (o7ovdaioc) ‘charm- 
ful in excellence, goodness, beauty.’ 

t. Though the metaphor in a sentence may rank no higher 
grammatically than an adjective or an adverbial modifier, it may yet 
aa ay a of a condensed allegory. Cf. Tennyson’s line (Princess 

. 124), 


She anewer’d sharply that I talk’d astray. 


364 HOW TO DESCRIBE AND NARRATE VISUALLY | 


P. 283. Within a few years after Combe’s work was reprinted i: 
this country, more than 300,000 copies had been sold, and seven sets o 
stereotype plates had been cast to overtake the demand. Interest in th 
new (supposed) science of Phrenology largely accounts for its popu 
larity. 

P. 291. Those unacquainted with the influence of the Paris salon may 
conveniently gain some acquaintance with it from Vol. I of George 
Ticknor’s Life, Letters and Journals. Writing of a later visit to Europe 
in 1857, Ticknor observes: ‘Paris is externally the most magnificeni| 
capital in Europe. But where are the old salons,—their grace, their 
charming and peculiar wit, their conversation that impressed its charac- 
ter upon the language itself, and made it, in many. respects, what it is.’ 
But Holmes in his three years’ stay, begun in 1833, was not too late 
to gather like impressions with those which Ticknor prized. The effect 
of French naturalness and brilliancy is seen on comparing the ‘autocrat’ 
in the New England Magazine of 1831 with the ‘autocrat’ in the 
Atlantic of 1857. 

P. 292. In tracing the genesis of the concrete manner, one should 
not neglect Spenser, whose whole work, and notably his View of the 


State of Ireland, seems inspired by an almost modern dislike for the 
literal and abstract. 








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